Category Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006

This highly successful programme began with the first unmanned launch in April 1971 and ended with the de-orbiting of Salyut 7 in February 1991. Two of the stations (Salyut 3 and Salyut 5) were military bases called Almaz. The differences between the “military” (Almaz, or Diamond) and the “civilian” (DOS, Russian for Permanent Orbital Station) stations were in their orbital parameters, durations, the composition of crew members (military officers and engineers for Almaz against civilian flight engineers and guest cosmonauts for Salyut), the openness of reporting of crew activities, and the research programmes. There were setbacks – the first crew to Salyut 1 could not enter the station, the second lost their lives in a re-entry accident, and there were five Soyuz missions which failed to achieve a docking with the station. In addition, there was a launch abort and a pad abort which cancelled Salyut missions. An unmanned Salyut was lost in a launch failure in July 1972, and in April 1973, Salyut (Almaz) 2 was lost shortly after entering orbit. This was followed the next month by the loss of Cosmos 557, which failed even before it received a Salyut identification. Salyut 4, 5, 6 and 7, however, pushed the boundaries of space endur­ance and demonstrated the wide range of experiments that could be conducted. The missions also demonstrated how much maintenance and trouble-shooting could be conducted. Salyut 6 and 7 also housed a series of visitors from Interkosmos and other countries, flying one-week visiting missions under the command of a veteran Soviet cosmonaut.

Featuring dual-docking ports, the later Salyut stations allowed crews to dock a pair of Soyuz craft to the same station, or dock a Progress unmanned re-supply craft to re-stock the resident crew or re-supply the consumables on board, thus prolonging the operational life of the station. The US Skylab programme had no such facilities.

The hybrid Salyut was a cylindrical structure, featuring two habitable compart­ments (transfer and work), with an internal docking port at the front and a modified Soyuz propulsion system at the rear. Power was supplied by two pairs of Soyuz solar panels. The overall length of the station was 15.8 m, with a maximum diameter of 4.15m and a 90m3 habitable volume. The average mass at launch was 18,900kg.

The Salyut 3 and 5 (Almaz) stations were different in design. Still cylindrical, the Soyuz docked with a rear port instead of a forward port. There was an airlock chamber for EVAs (although none were ever conducted from either Almaz), a work compart­ment and a living compartment. Almaz was 14.55 m long, with a maximum diameter of 4.15m and a similar habitable volume to that of Salyut. The station had larger arrays, however, and incorporated a detachable data capsule that could be ejected at the end of the military-orientated mission.

Salyut 4 was very similar to Salyut 1 but featured three steerable solar arrays, with a larger surface area and more capacity to produce electricity for the increased number of science experiments.

Salyut 6 and 7 resembled the earlier Salyuts but featured docking ports at the front and back, giving the capacity to re-supply and refuel the station using Progress freighters. Two Soyuz vessels could dock at the same time and the first EVAs for Soviet cosmonauts since 1969 were conducted from these stations. These record-breaking vehicles laid the ground work for Mir, testing hardware, techniques and systems for the larger and more capable station that would follow.

Flight Crew

STAFFORD, Thomas Patten Jr., 35, USAF, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 6 (1965)

CERNAN, Eugene Andrew, 32, USN, pilot

Flight Log

Gemini 9 certainly seemed to be a jinxed 13th US manned space flight, even before it got airborne. The prime Gemini 9 crew were killed in an air crash in St Louis on 28 February 1966, when their T-38 aircraft hit the roof of the building housing the Gemini 9 spacecraft, before bouncing off and crashing into a car park. Command pilot Elliott See and pilot Charles Bassett were replaced by the back-up crew, Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan, who had landed at St Louis in a second aircraft shortly afterwards.

On 17 May, the Agena 9 target rocket for the three-day rendezvous, docking and spacewalking mission flew into the Atlantic Ocean after a second-stage malfunction, and the mission was scrubbed. After the Agena 6 failure in October 1965, NASA began to develop an alternative target without its own engine, called the Augmented Target Docking Adapter, ATDA, should the Agena fail again. On 1 June, an Atlas booster carried ATDA into orbit, while Stafford and Cernan waited for their blast­off within the tight, 40-second window. Computer problems grounded them at T — 2 minutes. Stafford, the Gemini 6 pilot, had now been to the pad five times and had lifted off only once.

However, he and Cernan were at last airborne at 08: 39 hrs on 3 June, heading for what scientists were expecting to be a rather unusual sight, as signals from the ATDA indicated that its payload shrouds had not separated fully. They were right. Stafford gave Gemini 9 its trademark, describing the ATDA as an “angry alligator”. They couldn’t dock but, as planned, backed off and conducted two more rendezvous. During the manoeuvres in the 28.9° inclination orbit, the astronauts reached a peak

altitude of 311 km (195 miles). Cernan’s planned spacewalk was delayed to 5 June, because the astronauts felt exhausted.

The Gemini pilot was equipped with an enlarged EVA Life Support System (ELSS) on his chest, with its own heat exchanger to cool ventilator air and to provide 30 minutes of emergency oxygen. Cernan’s tether was 7.62 m (25 ft) long. He had planned to don the US Air Force manned manoeuvring unit, still attached to a tether, which was housed in the adapter section of the spacecraft. The AMU weighed 76 kg (168 lb) and was powered by nitrogen peroxide thrusters. Cernan’s legs were protected from the AMU’s exhaust by dark grey leggings of eleven layers of aluminised film. He donned the device but never flew it because Stafford called him back after a record 2 hours 8 minutes outside. Cernan found the spacewalk utterly exhausting, as con­trolling his movement in weightlessness was almost impossible. Compounding the problem were the snaking umbilicals of his spacesuit, the AMU, poor communica­tions when Cernan switched to the AMU circuit, plus the inability of his spacesuit’s environmental control system to handle his body heat. Cernan ended up with a fogged faceplate and couldn’t see out.

Gemini 9 did, however, perform a party piece at the end of the 3 day 20 minute 50 second mission, splashing down just 1.44 km (1 mile) from the recovery ship

USS Wasp, a target miss of just 704 m (2,300 ft) some 552 km (343 miles) east of Bermuda.

Milestones

21st manned space flight

13th US manned space flight

7th Gemini manned flight

1st US manned space flight by back-up crew

2nd US and 3rd flight with EVA operations

Closest splashdown of a Gemini to a recovery vessel (0.38 nautical miles)

Flight Crew

YOUNG, John Watts, 36, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 3 (1965)

COLLINS, Michael, 36, USAF, pilot

Flight Log

The 299th Atlas (and the 100th NASA Atlas) vehicle took off from Pad 15 on 18 July, taking with it the Agena 10 target stage, which duly entered its programmed orbit. Astronauts John Young and Michael Collins were launched 100 minutes later at 17: 20 hrs, and within 5 hours 52 minutes were docked with Agena 10. Young had used rather too much fuel, however, and practice dockings were cancelled. The Taciturn Two, as the astronauts were described, used the Agena 10 engine to boost them into a record 763 km (474 miles) apogee in the 28.9° orbit, increasing the speed of the docked combination by 129 m/sec during the Agena’s 80-second burn. The boost captured the attention of the crew more than the scenery did, because with the huge stage before their windows, the view was limited. The crew rested for nine hours, and on the next mission “day’’ relit the Agena to reduce the orbital height in preparation for a rendezvous with the second target – the dead Agena 8 stage used during the Gemini 8 mission the previous March.

Before the rendezvous, Collins performed a stand-up EVA, standing on his seat and poking his head and shoulders out of the spacecraft hatch, mainly to set up an astronomical camera and to retrieve cosmic dust particle collectors from the outside of the spacecraft, two of the 16 science experiments being flown on the mission. During the 49-minute exercise, both astronauts were badly affected by leaking lithium hydro­xide from the spacecraft’s environmental control system. Their eyes streaming and throats burning, they cut short the EVA. The Agena 10 was undocked after 38 hours 47 minutes attached to Gemini 10, while the latter, using its OAMS thrusters, made an optical rendezvous with the Agena 8 without the use of radar.

On 20 July, Young piloted Gemini to within 3 m (10 ft) of the rocket stage and Collins opened the hatch for his full EVA, during which he recovered a cosmic dust particle collector from its side. He lost a camera in the process as he wrestled with a nitrogen gas-powered hand-held manoeuvring unit and the annoying tendency to float up and away from where he meant to be. A fault on another camera meant that no pictures were produced of Collins next to the Agena. The planned one-and-a-half – hour spacewalk was called off after 39 minutes because of concern over usage of the dwindling station-keeping thruster fuel. Getting the 15 m (49 ft) tether and the astronaut back into the spacecraft took a lot of effort and having done so, just before retro-fire, the crew opened the hatch for three minutes to dump some rubbish into orbit, namely the chest pack and tether.

Gemini 10 splashed down 846 km (526 miles) east of Cape Kennedy, 5.4 km (3 miles) from the recovery ship, USS Guadalcanal at T + 2 days 22 hours 46 minutes 39 seconds.

Milestones

22nd manned space flight 14th US manned space flight 8th Gemini manned flight 1st re-boost into high orbit

1st mission to rendezvous with two separate spacecraft 1st astronaut to make bodily contact with another spacecraft 1st US mission to launch on the day originally scheduled 3rd US and 4th flight with EVA operations

Flight Crew

CONRAD, Charles “Pete” Jr., 36, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 5 (1965)

GORDON, Richard Francis Jr., 37, USN, pilot

Flight Log

Gemini 11’s task was to simulate a take-off by an Apollo lunar lander, and rendezvous and docking with an Apollo Command Module in lunar orbit, by taking off and docking with the Agena 11 target within 94 minutes, or one orbit. This meant that after the successful ascent of Agena 11 on the delayed launch day of 12 September, Gemini 11 would have just two seconds in its launch window. Its Titan II booster met its target within half a second, spewing into life with that characteristic high-pitched whine as the hypergolic propellants ignited spontaneously on contact.

Once in 28.8° inclination orbit, Conrad and Gordon switched on their rendezvous radar and computer and the space chase began. Rendezvous was achieved within 85 minutes and the ebullient Conrad jockeyed Gemini’s nose inside the Agena target. For the first time in the programme, the crew performed docking practice, with Gordon being the first Gemini pilot to dock. The Agena was given a quick test burn in preparation for a longer burn later in the mission which was designed to take the crew to a record altitude.

On 13 September, after a rest, Gordon opened the hatch to begin an EVA, which everyone hoped would at last dispel doubts about man’s ability to work in space. The burly Gemini pilot floated towards the Agena docking collar and sat astride it to attach a tether. He used a 10 m (33 ft) tether and a hand-held manoeuvring unit. Riding like a cowboy, as Conrad described him, Gordon had great difficulty remain­ing in one place and not floating upwards. The effort proved too much for the spacesuit’s environmental control system and Gordon became blinded with sweat. Conrad called him back after just 38 minutes. Gemini had just one more flight to prove

that effective EVA was possible. The crew overcame their disappointment with the big Agena burn, lasting 26 seconds, over the Canary Islands.

En route to a high point of 1,372 km (853 miles) over Western Australia, the highest Earth orbit manned apogee, Gordon took an epic photo of India and Sri Lanka from a height of about 800 km (497 miles). The Agena was used to reduce the orbital height, in preparation for a stand-up EVA by Gordon lasting 128 minutes, during which he conducted several of the mission’s science experiments and also had a cat nap.

Finally, Gemini 11 undocked from Agena 11, which was left dangling at the end of a 30 m (98 ft) tether. Conrad fired the thrusters to put the combination into a spin and thus created artificial gravity. After separating from the Agena and backing away, the crew performed further rendezvous exercises and a two-minute “equipment jettison” out of an opened hatch, before sitting back for a fully computer-controlled retro-fire, re-entry and landing. The eventful mission ended 1,120 km (696 miles) east of Miami, within 3 km (2 miles) of the recovery ship, USS Guam, at T + 2 days 23 hours 17 minutes 8 seconds.

Milestones

23rd manned space flight 15th US manned space flight 9th Gemini manned flight

1st manned mission to create artificial gravity in orbit 1st computer-controlled retro-fire re-entry and landing 4th US and 5th flight with EVA operations

On 1 November 1966, NASA civilian test pilot William Dana, 35, flew X-15-3 to 93 km during the programme’s tenth astro-flight.

Flight Crew

LOVELL, James Arthur Jr., 38, USN, command pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 7 (1965)

ALDRIN, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Jr., 36, USAF, pilot

Flight Log

Apart from the now customary Agena rendezvous and docking, the most important task of Gemini 12 was to overcome the perennial spacewalking problem. For this, astronaut Buzz Aldrin was to have the additional assistance of straps, harnesses, Velcro patches and even “golden slippers” spacesuit boot holders, to help keep him in place, so he could do really effective work without overworking his environmental control system. The crew walked to the pad with “The” and “End” cards on their backs and were told when they reached Gemini 12 that theirs was “the last chance… no reruns… show will close after this performance”. The show began with the Agena 12 launch from Pad 14 and followed that with Gemini 12’s lift-off at 15: 26hrs local time on 11 November. The flight achieved a 28.9° inclination orbit, which would at one point of the flight reach an apogee of 301 km (187 miles).

Fortunately, pilot Aldrin had written a thesis on manned orbital rendezvous before he was selected as an astronaut, so when the spacecraft’s rendezvous radar failed, his slide rule and sextant came out. To the admiration of ground controllers, rendezvous was achieved at T + 3 hours 46 minutes with a docking 28 minutes later. The astronauts had planned to use Agena’s engine for a modest re-boost to an altitude of 640 km (398 miles), but controllers were concerned about a potentially dangerous malfunction and instead ordered the crew to use the Gemini engines to perform “rendezvous” with a solar eclipse over South America, which was an added bonus to the mission. Aldrin then performed a 2 hour 39 minute stand-up EVA (SUEVA), taking photographs casually leaning over the spacecraft like a tourist.

The following day, 12 November, mission planners watched with some trepida­tion as Aldrin began the most important EVA so far. It went swimmingly and Aldrin

did everything he planned during the successful 2 hour 8 minute spacewalk. One of his tasks had been to attach a tether to the Agena 12 target, which later allowed the astronauts to perform an artificial gravity test. On the third day, Aldrin opened the hatch again and made a 51-minute SUEVA, conducting some of Gemini’s 14 science experiments. Thruster problems continued to be a concern throughout the mission but did not prevent a safe re-entry and landing at T + 3 days 22 hours 34 minutes 31 seconds, just 4.16 km (3 miles) from USS Wasp. The Gemini programme had been concluded with ten manned missions, clocking up 80 man-days in space. What was remarkable was that throughout the programme, the Soviets did not launch one cosmonaut into space. America was on its way – to the Moon.

Milestones

24th manned space flight 16th US manned space flight 10th Gemini manned flight

1st manned mission to witness solar eclipse in space 5th US and 6th flight with EVA operations

The next US mission after the end of the Gemini programme should have been the mission of Apollo 1 in February 1967. The tragic events on 27 January 1967 which prevented this mission are covered in detail under the chapter Quest for Space (Chapter 2).

Flight Crew

WEITZ, Paul Joseph, 50, civilian, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Skylab 2 (1973)

BOBKO, Karol Joseph, 45, USAF, pilot

MUSGRAVE, Franklin Story, 47, civilian, mission specialist 1

PETERSON, Donald Herod, 49, civilian, mission specialist 2

Flight Log

The first Challenger orbiter mission was originally due to have taken place on 27 January 1983 but was delayed by a series of potentially disastrous engine problems which first came to light after Challenger’s Flight Readiness Firing on 18 December

1982. Engineers detected an abnormal level of gaseous hydrogen. A second FRF was scheduled for 25 January and the TDRS payload was removed from Challenger. The hydrogen leak was detected again and this time was traced to a 2 cm (| in) crack in the No.1 main engine combustion chamber coolant outlet manifold. Engine 1 was ordered to be replaced. TDRS was replaced, only to be slightly damaged by fine salt sea spray after a severe storm. It was back inside Challenger’s cargo bay by 19 March.

Worse was to follow. The replacement engine 1 was found to be faulty and had to be replaced itself, then an inspection of the No.2 and 3 engines revealed hairline cracks which had to be repaired. Challenger sat engineless on the pad. At last, on 4 April

1983, at the comparatively late hour of 18:30 KSC time, Challenger ascended flaw­lessly into clear blue skies, the only anomaly being the annoying deposition of some black soot on Challenger’s windows at SRB separation.

The rookie crew (called the F Troop after a TV programme and the fact that they were the sixth Shuttle crew) proceeded to achieve the main objective – to deploy NASA’s first $100 million communications station in space, TDRS, on only the second IUS solid propellant two-stage upper stage flown. This was duly deployed

from its tilt table and was later injected into geostationary transfer orbit. A second stage failure stranded the satellite, however, and through no fault of its own the Shuttle was tarred with the same brush by some of the press. TDRS was eventually nudged into its planned geostationary orbit by careful firing of its own thrusters over a period of 58 days.

Maximum altitude reached by Challenger in the 28.4° orbit was 248 km (154 miles). On 8 April, Story Musgrave (EV1) and Donald Peterson (EV2) made the delayed EVA that was planned for STS-5, lasting 4 hours 17 minutes, to check out the Shuttle spacesuit and practice making space repairs, featuring in some spectacular TV. It was also the first US EVA since Skylab 4, nine years earlier. Later, Challenger came home to Edwards Air Force Base, landing on runway 22 at T + 5 days 0 hours 23 minutes 42 seconds, the shortest four-crew space flight.

Milestones

89th manned space flight 37th US manned space flight 6th Shuttle flight 1st flight of Challenger

16th US and 22nd flight with EVA operations

1st Shuttle-based EVA

1st TDRS deployment mission

Flight Crew

TITOV, Vladimir Georgyevich, 36, Soviet Air Force, commander STREKALOV, Gennady Mikhailovich, 43, civilian, flight engineer 1, 2nd mission

Previous mission: Soyuz T3 (1980)

SEREBROV, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 39, civilian, research engineer, 2nd mission

Previous mission: Soyuz T7 (1982)

Flight Log

Salyut 7 remained empty during the Russian winter of 1982-3 and was joined by the unmanned Cosmos 1443 module in March. Trained to work aboard Salyut and the new module were Vladimir Titov, Aleksandr Serebrov, making the first successive national manned space flight, and Gennady Strekalov. Their attempt to dock with Salyut, however, was doomed very soon after lift-off, at 19: 11 hrs local time from Baikonur, when the payload shroud tore away Soyuz T’s rendezvous radar antenna which only partially deployed. The crew used the RCS thrusters to try to shake the antenna free but to no avail. In trying to hide the serious problem, these engine firings were reported as tests of the attitude control system.

Although mission rules would normally dictate a return to Earth, the rookie commander Titov got permission to try a visual rendezvous and attempted docking using radar readings from the ground. The docking was perceived as having a low success probability by the ground controllers. It could have been a complete disaster, for Soyuz T8 flew past Salyut 7 at great speed, missing a catastrophic collision by 160 m (525 ft). Titov had made an optically guided approach to Salyut’s rear docking port after a 50 second rocket burn. The seventh space station flight had to be aborted not because of lack of power but because propellant reserves were not high enough to try again. The difficulty in guiding the Soyuz T to the station becomes more apparent when it was later revealed by Titov that he had not trained for a fully manual docking

approach and was unsure of his depth perception through the spacecraft periscope as he attempted a difficult manoeuvre.

The crew, which would have been the first three-man long duration crew since Soyuz 11, came home 96 km (60 miles) northeast of Arkalyk at T + 2 days 0 hours 17 minutes 48 seconds. Maximum altitude reached in the 51.6° orbit was 300 km (186 miles).

Milestones

90th manned space flight 53rd Soviet manned space flight 46th Soyuz manned space flight 7th Soyuz T manned space flight

1st space flight by crewman on successive national missions

Flight Crew

BOBKO, Karol Joseph, 48, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-6 (1983); STS 51-D (1985)

GRABE, Ronald John, 40, USAF, pilot HILMERS, David Carl, 35, USMC, mission specialist 1 STEWART, Robert Lee, 43, US Army, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS 41-B (1984)

PAILES, William, 33, USAF, payload specialist 1

Flight Log

The maiden flight of the Atlantis orbiter began in spectacular style from Pad 39A at 11: 15hrs local time, but the first anyone was to have known about the mission was nine minutes earlier, when the ground launch sequencer started the final countdown. Mission 51-J was a Department of Defense flight and is one of the most anonymous in Shuttle history because of its classification. It is thought to have deployed two DSCS communications satellites into orbit aboard an IUS upper stage. According to data revealed by the North American Air Defense Command, NORAD, Atlantis reached a record 512km (318 miles) altitude in the 28.5° orbit.

Also on board was an experiment called Bios, which studied the damage to biological samples by high-energy cosmic rays. The mission also marked the end of the brief career of the USA Air Force Manned Space Engineer corps, whose William Pailes was the second and last to fly. At one time, one or two representatives from the MSE corps were to have flown every DoD mission. After the Challenger accident the next year, these already limited opportunities disappeared altogether.

Atlantis made a longer than usual return from its high orbit, landing on runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base at T + 4 days 1 hour 44 minutes 38 seconds.

Flight Crew

COVEY, Richard Oswalt, 44, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS 51-1 (1985), STS-26 (1988)

CULBERTSON Jr., Frank Lee, 41, USN, pilot MEADE, Carl Joseph, 40, USAF, mission specialist 1 SPRINGER, Robert Clyde, 48, USMC, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-29 (1989)

GEMAR, Charles Donald “Sam”, 35, US Army, mission specialist 3

Flight Log

Originally scheduled for launch in July 1990, when a liquid hydrogen leak was found on Columbia (STS-35), three precautionary mini tanking tests on Atlantis also con­firmed hydrogen leaks on its ET. These could not be repaired on the pad, and the stack was returned to the processing area for repairs on 9 August. The STS-38 stack was parked outside the VAB overnight to allow STS-35 to be rolled out to its pad. Unfortunately, a hail storm that night caused minor tile damage which also needed repairing. Atlantis was returned to the VAB for mating on 2 October, but during hoisting operations a platform beam that should have been removed from the aft compartment fell off, causing more (but thankfully minor) damage, which was quickly repaired. The stack was returned to the Pad on 12 October and a fourth tanking test went smoothly. The revised launch date was set at 9 November. However, on 31 October, the USAF announced another delay to the launch, this time due to “anomalies discovered during cargo testing.” The night-time launch was rescheduled for 15 November and this time occurred without incident despite some concerns with the weather at the Cape. Atlantis lifted off 18 minutes into its four-hour launch window.

As this was a classified DoD mission, the air-to-ground communications and reporting of crew activities and mission events ceased after confirmation that Atlantis

had safely reached orbit, but this did not stop the speculation as to what the mission of STS-38 was intended to achieve. Media reports indicated that the payload bay was full of sensors, including high-resolution digital cameras that might be used to monitor activities in the Persian Gulf, particularly the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that led to the First Gulf War. However, a USAF spokesman indicated that Atlantis had launched into an orbital inclination that would take the Shuttle well south of Iraq “for much of the time.” This gave rise to comments that the payload might be an electronic eavesdropping satellite called “Magnum”, rather than a photoreconnaissance satel­lite. The deployment of the payload could have been at any time during the orbital phase, but media reports indicated that this operation had been carried out two days into the mission. The payload was later identified as an advanced data relay satellite for use with the Crystal imaging reconnaissance platform.

Whatever it was, its deployment from the orbiter was monitored by amateur astronomers on Earth. Their reports indicated that the deployed payload was behav­ing very mysteriously in ways never seen before, suggesting that the satellite might have malfunctioned and that the Shuttle crew might have been required to retrieve it. NASA and the Air Force remained silent, which only served to fuel speculation that

there was perhaps an unannounced EVA by the crew. Records have shown that the RMS was carried on classified missions STS 51-C, STS-27, and the later unclassified DoD mission STS-39, but not on STS-38. Therefore, if the satellite had to be retrieved or attended to, the lack of RMS meant that the only other option was a contingency EVA. If such an event had occurred – and there is still no evidence that an EVA was accomplished – astronauts Springer (EV1) and Meade (EV2) would have been assigned the task, supported by Culbertson (IV). A year after the mission, an issue of Space News dated 18-24 November 1991 included an interview with Don Stager, the Vice President of TRW’s military wing. Stager talked about the upcoming deployment of the DSP satellite during STS-44, and indicated that “a couple of [military shuttle] launches ago, there was a situation that was not understood”. He indicated that sunlight glinting off the solar arrays had caused a problem, which may have explained the strange movements observed by the amateur astronomers. Exactly what occurred during the deployment sequence will remain classified for many years to come, however.

Although the activities of the crew were classified, at least one voice message from Atlantis was released. Commander Dick Covey requested that a message of support be sent to the men and women of Desert Shield from the crew of Atlantis. The crew wished them peace and a speedy return home. The astronauts were thinking of them and their families as they orbited the Earth.

The landing was intended to be at Edwards AFB, but unacceptable crosswinds and continuing adverse conditions led to a late decision to delay the landing by 24 hours and take Atlantis back to the Cape. The last landing there, in April 1985 (STS 51-D), led to a landing left of the centreline, locked right side landing brakes and a blown tyre. Because of this, landings at KSC were eschewed in favour of Edwards AFB, whose dry lake bed surfaces surrounding the runways offered more flexibility until improvements were completed at the Cape. This time, however, Atlantis came home without incident, landing on Runway 33 and rolling out about 2,750 metres to wheel stop.

Milestones

136th manned space flight 67th US manned space flight 37th Shuttle flight 7th Atlantis flight

7th and final fully classified DoD Shuttle mission 1st KSC landing for Atlantis

Meade celebrates his 40th birthday in space (16 Nov)

STS-47 Posted by admin in Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 on November 2, 2015 1992-061A 12 September 1992 Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida 20 September 1992 Runway 33, Kennedy Space Center, Florida OV-105 Endeavour/ET-45/SRB BI-053/SSME #1 2026; #2 2022; #3 2029 7 days 22 hrs 30 min 23 sec Endeavour Spacelab J (SL-J) research objectives utilising the pressurised Spacelab module Flight Crew GIBSON, Robert Lee “Hoot”, 45, USN, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: STS 41-B (1984); STS 61-C (1986); Cdr STS-27 (1988) BROWN Jr., Curtis Lee, 35, USAF, pilot LEE, Mark, 40, USAF, mission specialist 1, payload commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-30 (1989) APT, Jerome “Jay”, 43, civilian, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-37 (1991) DAVIS, (Nancy) Jan, 37, civilian, mission specialist 3 JEMISON, Mae Carol, 34, civilian, science mission specialist MOHRI, Mamoru Mark, 43, civilian, Japanese payload specialist Flight Log The 50th flight of the Space Shuttle series featured a joint venture in materials science and life science experiments between NASA and the Japanese NASDA agency. The mission began with the first on-time launch since November 1985, carrying an experiment programme of 24 materials and 20 life science experiments into orbit. Of the 44 investigations, 35 were sponsored by NASDA, seven were from NASA and two were joint efforts. As with previous missions, many of the experiments were designed to help prepare the astronauts for future work on space station and long – duration missions. As one of the partners in the space station programme, Japan was eager to gain some experience in a dedicated Spacelab mission (termed Fuwatto 92, or First Materials Processing Test – FMPT) for its first Shuttle flight, rather that having a PS fly on a Shuttle mission with a smaller, more generic experiment programme. Aside from the main Spacelab experiment payload, the crew worked in two shifts (Red – Brown, Lee, Mohri; Blue – Apt, Davis, Jemison; Gibson worked with either shift as The prime and alternative crew members inside the Spacelab J laboratory installed in the cargo bay of Endeavour during STS-47 launch-processing in July 1992. Kneeling from left Chiaki Mukai alternative Japanese PS; Davis; Takao Doi alternative Japanese PS. Standing from left are Brown, Lee, Apt, Mohri, Gibson, Jemison and Stanley Koszelak, an alternative PS who served as back-up to Jemison required) on five mid-deck secondary payloads. Endeavour also carried twelve GAS canisters, ten of which were experiments and the other two acting as ballast mass. Of the five mid-deck secondary payloads, one was an Israeli experiment to study the ability of oriental hornets to orientate their combs in microgravity. In fact, the hornets were part of a very comprehensive “crew”. In addition to the seven astronauts, STS-47 carried four female frogs, thirty chicken eggs, 180 oriental hornets, about 400 adult fruit flies, 7,200 fly larvae and two Japanese carp. The menagerie became known as “Hoot’s Ark” after commander Robert “Hoot” Gibson (whose nickname came from a famous cowboy film star of the silent and early sound western movies). Media interest focused on Jemison, both as the first African American woman in space and as a science mission specialist. She was the first (and, to date, only) career astronaut to be officially assigned to perform the tasks of a payload specialist. Jemison had been frustrated with her experiences at NASA for some time prior to this flight and declined the chance of a second mission, resigning from the astronaut office in March 1993 to pursue other interests. Media attention also focused on the first married couple in space (Lee and Davis), with the inevitable question arising of “will they or won’t they become the first members of the 300 km high club.’’ Rumours about this persisted, despite claims that no “marital experiments’’ were planned and the fact that Lee and Davis worked on different shifts throughout the mission. Like several others, this mission was extended a day to gather more science from the experiment package. Offshore reports of rain around the Cape area were a factor in delaying the landing of Endeavour when it was finally due to return. Mission controllers passed up the first opportunity to land at KSC, but further analysis indicated that the cloud would not encroach over the Cape, allowing the Shuttle to land at the second opportunity. Milestones 154th manned space flight 80th US manned space flight 50th Shuttle mission 2nd flight of Endeavour 7th Spacelab Long Module mission 1st on-time Shuttle launch since November 1985 1st married couple on same mission (Lee and Davis) 1st African American female in space (Jemison) 1st flight of a science mission specialist (Jemison) 1st Japanese to fly on the Shuttle (Mohri) STS-65 Posted by admin in Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 on November 2, 2015 Int. Designation 1994-039A Launched 8 July 1994 Launch Site Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida Landed 23 July 1994 Landing Site Runway 33, Shuttle Landing Facility, Kennedy Space Center, Florida Launch Vehicle OV-102 Columbia/ET-64/SRB BI-066/SSME #1 2019; #2 2030; #3 2017 Duration 14 days 17 hrs 55 min 00 sec Call sign Columbia Objective Second flight of the International Microgravity Laboratory using a Spacelab Long Module configuration Flight Crew CABANA, Robert Donald, 45, USMC, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-41 (1990); STS-53 (1992) HALSELL Jr., James Donald, 37, pilot HIEB, Richard James, 38, civilian, mission specialist 1, payload commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-39 (1991); STS-49 (1992) WALZ, Carl Erwin, 38, USAF, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-51 (1993) CHIAO, Leroy, 33, civilian, mission specialist 3 THOMAS, Donald Alan, 39, civilian, mission specialist 4 MUKAI, Chiaki, 41, civilian, Japanese payload specialist 1 Flight Log Following a smooth countdown, the mission of STS-65 carrying the IML-2 science payload got off to a perfect start. Once in orbit, the crew divided into the two teams (Red Shift – Cabana, Halsell, Hieb and NASDA PS Mukai; Blue Shift – Walz, Chiao and Thomas), working around the clock to operate not only the IML-2 science programme, but also a range of secondary and mid-deck experiments. This flight carried more than twice the experiments flown on IML-1 two years before and was supported by an international team of 210 scientists representing six space research organisations (ESA, CSA, CNES, DARA, NASDA and NASA). The life sciences programme consisted of fifty experiments, divided into bio­processing, space biology, human physiology and radiation biology. Part of these investigations required the European Biorack facility, which was making its third trip into space. The Biorack housed 19 experiments, featuring chemicals and biological The first Japanese woman to fly in space, Chiaki Mukai, is shown entering the IML-2 Spacelab module from the connecting tunnel from the mid-deck of Columbia during the 15-day mission samples that included bacteria, mammalian and human cells, isolated tissues and eggs, sea urchin larvae, fruit flies and plant seedlings. Thirty materials-processing experi­ments were also conducted, using nine facilities. In the Protein Crystallisation Facility (flying for the second time), approximately 5,000 video images were taken of crystals grown during the mission. This mission also advanced the concept of remote tele­science, with researchers on the ground able to monitor their experiments in real time as they were operated aboard the orbiter. At the end of the mission, the Spacelab Mission Operations Control Center at Huntsville in Alabama reported that over 25,000 payload commands had been issued, a new record. In addition to the IML investigations the mission also flew the Orbital Accel­eration Research Experiment (OARE), the Commercial Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG) and the Military Application of Ship Track (MAST) payloads, as well as the SAREX amateur radio equipment. The Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS), which did not require equipment, was also part of the research programme of this flight. On top of all this, there were also more than a dozen Detailed Test Objectives and more than fifteen Detailed Supplementary Objectives assigned to the mission, as well as the ongoing programme of biomedical studies as part of the EDO Medical Project (EDOMP), and the Earth photography and observation programme. The crew also set up a video to record the experience of riding in the crew cabin during launch and entry for the first time. On 20 July, the crew honoured the 25th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, noting that the historic mission also featured a spacecraft called Columbia (the Command and Service Module). The 22 July landing was waived off due to the possibility of rain showers around the Cape but the next day the conditions were good to support a return to Earth. This was the final flight of Columbia prior to its scheduled modification and refurbishment period at Rockwell’s facility in California. OV-102 left the Cape in October 1994 and returned in April 1995 to begin preparations for its next mission on STS-73. Milestones 171st manned space flight 93rd US manned space flight 63rd Shuttle mission 17th flight of Columbia 4th EDO mission 2nd flight of IML configuration 1st Japanese woman to fly in space (Mukai) Longest single flight to date by a female (Mukai) 1st use of video-tape to record lift-off and re-entry from inside flight deck Flight Crew RICHARDS, Richard Noel, 48, USN, commander, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-28 (1989); STS-41 (1990); STS-50 (1992) HAMMOND Jr., Blaine, 42, USAF, pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-39 (1991) LINENGER, Jerry Michael, 39, USN, mission specialist 1 HELMS, Susan Jane, 36, USAF, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-54 (1993) MEADE, Carl Joseph, 43, USAF, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-38 (1990); STS-50 (1992) LEE, Mark Charles, 42, USAF, mission specialist 4, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-30 (1989); STS-47 (1992) Flight Log Weather conditions delayed the launch of STS-64 by almost two hours into a two – and-a-half-hour window, but otherwise the launch was untroubled. Once on orbit, the Lidar-in-space Technology Experiment (LITE), mounted on a Spacelab pallet in the payload bay, was activated on FD 1 and became operational the next day. It operated for almost a week of activities, resulting in what official reports called a “highly successful technology test.” The Lidar (light detection and radar) method of optical radar used laser pulses instead of radio waves to study the atmosphere of Earth, as part of the NASA Mission to Planet Earth programme. Sixty-five groups of researchers from twenty countries took part in the experiment, which also employed simultaneous airborne and ground-based measurements to verify the data collected by the LITE payload. The experiments operated for 53 hours, of which 43 hours were of high-rate data quality. Atmosphere “sites” located high above northern Europe, Indonesia and the South Pacific area, Russia and Africa were targeted and from Meade tests the new SAFER system 130 nautical miles above the Earth. Hardware supporting the Lidar-in-space Technology Experiment (LITE) is at the lower right. The photo was taken from the RMS shoulder joint camera. The robot arm is also captured in the scene upper right the data collected, new information on the structure of clouds, storm systems, dust clouds and pollutants in the atmosphere was obtained. Furthermore, the data was used to understand the effects of forest fires and how reflective the surface of the Earth was at different points and changing times of the day, in varying “seasonal” conditions. On FD 5, the Shuttle Pointed Autonomous Research Tool for Astronomy-201 (SPARTAN-201) was deployed by the RMS. This was the unit’s second mission and was designed to investigate the acceleration and velocity of solar wind, as well as taking measurements of the Sun’s corona. The collected data was stored on board for downloading once back on Earth and the vehicle was retrieved on FD 7. During FD 8, Lee (EV1) and Meade (EV2) performed the only EVA of the mission, but one which was a milestone in the preparations for expanded EVA operations at ISS. During the EVA, the two astronauts evaluated the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER). The RMS remained active and on hand in case of problems. The SAFER unit was designed to provide a usable back-up if an astronaut became untethered during EVA. In some circumstances, the Shuttle would be capable of manoeuvring to “scoop up” a stranded astronaut (though this has not yet been necessary), but the ISS is far less manoeuvrable, so an alternative personal safety system would be required. This unit was a scaled-down version of the MMU flown during 1984 and was designed for emergency situations only (but with built-in back up systems). Propulsion came from 24 fixed-position thrusters. The 1.36 kg nitrogen supply, which could be recharged from the orbiter nitrogen system, could provide about a 3m/sec change in velocity until the gas was expelled. The unit also had an attitude control system and a 28-volt battery pack, which could be charged in orbit. During the EVA, both astronauts flew several short translation and rotation sequences, with data recorded in the SAFER unit for analysis after the mission. The unit was an outstanding success, as the astronauts soon learned that it used less nitrogen than predicted. They also evaluated the SAFER attitude hold system by manually tumbling each other. Despite Meade rolling Lee faster than planned, the attitude control system in Lee’s unit worked perfectly to correct his rotation. Both astronauts replenished their SAFERs about seven times during the EVA and the only problems during the excursion were Meade reporting that his feet had gone cold, and that evaluation of the Electronic Cuff Check (ECC) list, which was designed to replace the paper cuff checklists that had been used since Apollo 12, proved disappointing. Aside from the LITE payload, STS-64 also carried the Shuttle Plume Im­pingement Flight Experiment, a 10 m RMS extension that was designed to collect data on the RCS thrusters, which would help in understanding their effects in close proximity to large space structures such as Mir or ISS. As with all Shuttle flights, a suite of mid-deck experiments was carried on this mission, many of which had flown before. The mission was extended by a day to maximise the collection of data and was increased by a further 24 hours on 19 September due to storms at the Cape. The following day, two attempts at landing at the Cape were also abandoned due to the weather, so the mission was diverted to Edwards for the third landing window of the day. Milestones 172nd manned space flight 94th US manned space flight 64th Shuttle mission 19th flight of Discovery 30th US and 55th flight with EVA operations 1st flight of LITE 1st untethered US EVA for 10 years 1st tests of SAFER . SOYUZ TM25 Posted by admin in Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 on November 2, 2015 Flight Crew TSIBLIYEV, Vasily Vasilyevich, 42, Russian Air Force, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM17 (1993) LAZUTKIN, Alexandr Ivanovich, 39, civilian, flight engineer EWALD, Reinhold, 40, German cosmonaut researcher Flight Log Following the docking of TM25 to Mir on 12 February and the transfer of the cosmonauts to the station, there were six crew members aboard once again. The Mir EO-22 crew of Korzun and Kaleri now included NASA astronaut Linenger, who had arrived the month before. The Mir EO-23 crew of Tsibliyev and Lazutkin would continue their mission with Linenger after Ewald had completed his 18-day research programme and returned to Earth with the EO-22 cosmonauts. The EO-23 crew would also work with Mike Foale, who would replace Linenger in May 1997. Theirs would be an eventful and challenging residency, with the 23 February fire aboard the station and the 25 June collision of Progress M34 to contend with. Ewald’s research centred on medical experiments to study the effects of micro­gravity on human performance, the function of both hormones and the cardiovascular system, and related psychological effects. In addition, he had a programme of technological and materials processing experiments. Following the fire on board the station, Ewald completed his experiments and prepared for the return to Earth with the EO-22 crew, leaving Mir on 2 March aboard Soyuz TM24. The EO-23 crew now settled down to their research programme, but the science schedule was frequently interrupted by essential maintenance work on the Mir’s aging systems. One of these repairs was to deal with reported coolant system leaks, which sprayed ethylene glycol into the station’s atmosphere, reaching dangerous levels at Mir EO-23 commander Tsibliyev operates at the end of the station’s Strela boom during the 29 April EVA with Jerry Linenger. At lower left is the Kvant 1 module and above it is the Sofora tower times. Again, delays in supplying a new Soyuz R7 launch vehicle meant that the Russians were told they would have to extend their mission by six weeks. On 29 April, Jerry Linenger became the first American to perform an EVA from a space station (for 4 hours 49 minutes) since the Skylab crews some 23 years previously. Linenger also became the first US astronaut to use a Russian EVA suit. This was a new variant called Orlan-M, which was the latest update to the basic Orlan suit that had been used since 1978. Orlan-M would also be used on early Russian EVA operations at ISS. During the EVA, the crew installed the Optical Properties Monitor on Kristall and removed some US experiments that would be returned to Earth on STS-84. The EO-23 crew were scheduled to make two further EVAs in June, but other events precluded these from taking place. Following the next exchange of NASA crew members in May 1997, Mike Foale became the fifth astronaut to work on the Mir station. He had a busy science programme planned that would complement that of the Russian cosmonauts, though most of their time was still being taken up with housekeeping and maintenance. On 25 June, Tsibliyev attempted to re-dock Progress M34. An attempt to use the TORU remote control system had failed during Progress M33 operations in March and in order for the system to be re-qualified for use, Tsibliyev found himself having to try to perform an operation that he had had little training for. When the Progress approached, the cosmonaut realised that it was not responding to commands as it should have been and tried to guide it past the station for another attempt. However, it collided with the Spektr module, puncturing the pressurised compartment and damaging the solar arrays. As alarms sounded, the air inside the station rapidly began leaking into the vacuum of space. Internal power and instrument connections leading from the core module to Spektr were severed and the crew were able to seal the hatch, shutting off the module (and with it, most of Foale’s equipment and personal possessions) and the leak. In the days that followed, Mir suffered other problems, including an inadvertent crew error that caused the station to drift, losing solar lock. It took a Herculean effort that tested all three crew members to finally bring the station back under control and avoid the need for an emergency evacuation. It had been hoped that Tsibliyev and Lazutkin could perform EVAs to effect repairs, but concerns over the health of the commander put these plans on hold until the arrival of the next crew. After much discussion between Russian and American space officials and the astronaut himself, it was decided that Foale would remain on the station with the replacement crew, as planned. Even the end of the EO-23 mission was not trouble-free. The re-entry burn occurred on time and the parachute deployed, but the soft-landing rockets that should have fired 1.5 metres off the ground failed, resulting in a 7.5 m/sec landing impact. The seat shock absorbers saved the crew from serious injury. Post-flight investigation revealed that the soft-landing rockets had fired, but at 5.8 km altitude. Initially blamed for the collision with Progress, the crew were eventually cleared of all responsibility, although neither ever flew again. It was later determined that the mass of trash inside the Progress had been miscalculated by a ton. This meant that the manoeuvring and braking burns were not as effective as they should have been, thus making Progress arrive quicker and close in more rapidly than estimated. Milestones 195th manned space flight 84th Russian manned space flight 77th manned Soyuz mission 24th manned Soyuz TM mission 23rd Mir resident crew 30th Russian and 64th flight with EVA operations 1st US EVA in a Russian spacesuit Tsibliyev celebrates his 43rd birthday in space (20 Feb) . SOYUZ TM30 Posted by admin in Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 on November 2, 2015 Flight Crew ZALETIN, Sergei Viktorovich, 37, Russian Air Force, commander KALERI, Aleksandr Yuriyevich, civilian, flight engineer, 3rd mission Previous missions: Soyuz 14 (1992); Soyuz TM24 (1996) Flight Log After months of uncertainty, the funding for a new expedition to the Mir complex, the 29th, came from a new private corporation based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. MirCorp was 60 per cent owned by RKK Energiya and shared with the venture capital group Gold and Appel and other entrepreneurs. The crew assigned to return to Mir were authorised by the Russian government to complete their mission, which included two new Progress cargo craft and a programme that could have extended into August 2000, a 70- to 90-day mission. MirCorp had also indicated that they had received authorisation from Energiya to lease Mir for space tourism, in-orbit advertising, industrial production and science, turning the station into a commercial space facility. NASA, quite understandably, was not happy about this sequence of events. Soyuz TM30 launched from Baikonur on 4 April and docked with the station two days later. After a check of onboard systems and hatch integrity, the two cosmonauts opened the hatches and floated into the station, occupying it for the first time in eight months. For most of the first two weeks, the cosmonauts were occupied with house­keeping and bringing the station back into operation. One of their primary objectives was to establish whether the aging station could support the plans that MirCorp was promoting. An EVA was completed on 12 May and lasted for 4 hours 52 minutes. This was to be the final excursion from the Mir complex. The crew performed a test of a sealing compound on the hull of the station, an operation that had been delayed from previous missions. They also inspected and detailed the condition of the station, dismantled experiments and retrieved sample cassettes. The final Mir resident crew of Zaletin (left) and Kaleri was launched to the Station aboard Soyuz TM30 During their stay aboard Mir, the EO-28 crew was able to perform research in biomedicine, space sciences, materials sciences, Earth sciences and technology. While discussions went on about what mission would follow, the cosmonauts began to pack up their experiment results and prepare the station for a period of inactivity, as for only the fourth time in its history, it would be left without a crew. MirCorp had planned a period of inactivity after this flight to secure new funds and to plan future operations based on the reports and feedback from this recent mission. In the early hours of 16 June, the two cosmonauts undocked from Mir and prepared for their return journey, leaving Mir alone in orbit. The crew reported that the station was in good shape and that there seemed to be no reason why it could not be revisited again. Of course, the subject of raising the funds to support these revisits was not mentioned. Delays in securing the funding resulted in launch schedule slippage. The first space tourist was announced as American Dennis Tito, who scheduled to visit the station in 2000. This slipped to 2001 and funding from MirCorp was not forthcoming. Energiya now looked to de-orbit the station in the spring of 2001 and a new Progress was launched to direct the station to a fiery re-entry. On 15 February 2001, the Mir base block celebrated its fifteenth year in space. To ensure it fell on unpopulated areas, the Progress engines were fired for 20 minutes on 23 March and again twice more on succeeding orbits. The station entered the atmosphere and burned up, with some of the larger items of debris falling into the Pacific some 3,000 km east of New Zealand. The final communique from the Russians was that “Mir ceased to exit.” It was time to look towards ISS, but in the ten years between the arrival of the Soyuz TM8 crew on 7 September 1989 and the departure of the Soyuz TM29 crew on 27 August 1999, Mir had been occupied continuously for 3,640 days 22 hours 52 minutes, a record the ISS will not break until October 2010. Milestones 216th manned space flight 89th Russian manned space flight 82nd manned Soyuz mission 29th manned Soyuz TM mission 28th and final Mir resident crew 35th Russian and 75th flight with EVA operations 1st mission funded under MirCorp Flight Crew HALSELL Jr., James Donald, 43, USAF, commander, 5th mission Previous missions: STS-65 (1994); STS-74 (1995); STS-83 (1997); STS-94 (1997) HOROWITZ, Scott Jay, 43, USAF, pilot, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-75 (1996); STS-82 (1997) WEBER, Mary Ellen, 37, civilian, mission specialist 1, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-70 (1995) WILLIAMS, Jeffery Nels, 42, USA, mission specialist 2 VOSS, James Shelton, 51, US Army, mission specialist 3, 3rd mission Previous missions: STS-44 (1991); STS-53 (1992); STS-69 (1995) HELMS, Susan Jane, 42, USAF, mission specialist 4, 4th mission Previous missions: STS-54 (1993); STS-64 (1994); STS-78 (1996) USACHEV, Yuri Vladimirovich, 42, civilian, Russian, mission specialist 5, 3rd mission Previous missions: Soyuz TM18 (1994); Soyuz TM23 (1996) Flight Log The delays in preparing the Russian Service Module meant that it would not be launched until July 2000. This gave rise to maintenance concerns with Unity/Zarya, which by now had been in orbit for over 12 months. Specifically, there was concern about the shelf life and reliability of Zarya’s batteries, which had not been designed to provide power for so long without the addition of the Service Module’s power systems. A crew had been assigned to STS-101 (2A.2) and the mission was due to follow the launch and docking of the Service Module prior to arrival of the first resident crew. But with the delay, it was decided to split the STS-101 mission and original crew between two flights. The revised STS-101 mission (designated 2A.2a) would fly first in April 2000, and then after the docking of the Russian Service Module Jeffery Williams hangs on to one of the newly installed handrails on the ISS PMA-2 during the 21 May EVA with James Voss the new mission, STS-106 (2A.2b), would complete the preparations for receiving the first resident crew. The original crew for STA-101 was Halsell, Horowitz, Weber and Williams, plus Ed Lu and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Boris Morukov. The two cosmonauts had trained extensively on SM systems and activation, including unload­ing the first Progress re-supply craft planned to dock to the SM shortly after it became part of the ISS. Lu and Malenchenko had also trained for an EVA together, so it seemed sensible to utilise this training to reassign them to the STS-106 mission after the launch of the SM and Progress. It was also decided that in order to further prepare the station by completing get-ahead tasks for the first resident crew, and to give the second resident crew experience aboard the station, the latter would fly to ISS aboard STS-101 as part of the Shuttle crew. This would also be of benefit in smoothing the hand-over operations between the first and second crew the following year. Therefore, Usachev, Voss and Helms found themselves visiting ISS a year earlier than planned. The launch of STS-101 did not occur in April, thanks to three launch delays caused by high winds at KSC and the overseas emergency landing sites. The mission was designated a “home improvement house call” and after its eventual launch on 19 May, STS-101 docked with the station the following day. On 21 May, Williams (EV1) and Voss (EV2) performed the mission’s only EVA, of 6 hours 44 minutes, during which they secured the US-built crane and installed the final Strela units on PMA-1. After replacing a faulty communications antenna, they also installed hand­rails and a camera cable. STS-101 remained docked to ISS for over 138 hours, with the hatches open for a total of 80 hours. During this time, the crew installed four new batteries and associated electronics in Zarya, as well as 10 new smoke detectors, four cooling fans, additional computer cables and a new communications memory unit and power distribution box for the US-built communications system. They also transferred over almost 1,500 kg of logistics into the Unity and Zarya modules, including clothing, tools, can openers, sewing kits, trash bags, a treadmill and exercise bicycle ergometer, an IMAX film camera and four 45-litre water containers for use by the resident crews. A further 590 kg of logistics was transferred the other way, back to Atlantis for return to Earth. Prior to undocking, the orbit of ISS was boosted by a further 45 km by firing the onboard engines of Atlantis in three sessions. The new orbit was approximately 383 x 370 km. Once again, a fly-around of the station was performed after the orbiter undocked in order to photo-document the condition of the station. Milestones 217th manned space flight 128th US manned space flight Shuttle mission 21st flight of Atlantis 3rd Shuttle ISS mission 1st Atlantis ISS mission ISS EO-6 Posted by admin in Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 on November 2, 2015 Int. Designation N/A (launched on STS-113) Launched 23 November 2002 Launch Site Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida Landed 3 May 2003 (in TMA1) Landing Site South of Aral Sea near Turgai in Kazakhstan, 460 km short of its planned landing site Launch Vehicle STS-113 Duration 161 days 1 hr 14min 38 sec Call sign Persey (Persey) – Soyuz TMA Objective ISS-6 expedition programme Flight Crew BOWERSOX, Kenneth Duane, 45, USN, ISS-6 commander, 5th mission Previous missions: STS-50 (1990); STS-61 (1993); STS-73 (1995); STS-82 (1997) BUDARIN, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 49, civilian, Russian ISS-6 flight engineer and Soyuz commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Mir EO-19/STS-71 (1995); Soyuz TM27 (1998) PETTIT, Donald Roy, 47, civilian, US ISS-6 science officer Flight Log The sixth resident crew for ISS had arrived aboard STS-113 and had expected a Shuttle landing at the end of their mission. However, the loss of Columbia and her crew on 1 February 2003 resulted in the Shuttle fleet being grounded and the crew having to use the TMA1 spacecraft for the landing. They were replaced by the ISS-7 “caretaker crew”, who arrived in TMA2. Shortly before launch on STS-113, the original NASA science officer, Don Thomas, was medically disqualified from the mission after reports stated that he had been subjected to sufficient radiation on his previous space flights that a long-duration flight could exceed his maximum allowable life time dose. Thomas was replaced by his back-up, Don Pettit who, due to the late change in the crew, had to wear the clothing already aboard the station and eat the menu already selected for Thomas. However, this was a minor issue to overcome as the crew settled down to a planned four-month tour. There were no planned visiting missions scheduled until the arrival of STS-114 to bring them home. The science programme for this sixth residency included more than 20 new or existing investigations, for which the crew would devote over 240 hours to research time. The research fields included medicine, materials, plant science, commercial biotechnology and manufacturing. In addition, Don Pettit took time to include a series of science demonstrations that were supplemented by postings on the internet Wearing Russian Sokol suits in preparation for the unexpected return to Earth on the TMA1 spacecraft, the ISS-6 crew are in the Russian Zvezda module on ISS. L to r ISS NASA science officer Don Pettit, ISS flight engineer and Soyuz commander Nikolai Budarin, and ISS commander Ken Bowersox and dubbed “Saturday Morning Science” (similar to those activities conducted during the Skylab 3 mission in 1973). There were two EVAs accomplished during the mission, though only one was originally planned. The first should have included Budarin, who would have been the first Russian to perform an EVA in an American suit from Quest. However, the EVA was delayed from 12 December to 15 January when US medical specialists ruled that Budarin did not meet the criteria for US EVAs (although he was not disqualified by Russian doctors from conducting any Russian-based EVA!). He was replaced on the EVA by Pettit. The 15 January EVA (6 hours 51 minutes) saw the two Americans release the remaining launch restraint from the P1 Truss radiator system that had been delivered by STS-113. They then witnessed its deployment, controlled from MCC Houston. Inspection and cleaning occupied the next part of their EVA, which closed with the retrieval of tools for a storage box on the Z1 Truss, and a health check on the ammonia reserves delivered in 2001 and stored on the P6 Truss. EVA 2 was added after the loss of the Columbia and conducted on 8 April (6 hours 26 minutes) to ensure that the next crew would only need to perform an EVA to deal with an emergency. The two astronauts reconfigured cables and continued external outfitting of the station pending the resumption of assembly flights. In addition to connecting electrical conduits, the crew inspected faulty heater cables, replaced a failed power control module on the MT and rerouted two of the four CMG cables on the Z1 Truss, as well as completing several smaller chores and get-ahead tasks. Progress M1-9 was undocked from the station on 1 February, the same day that the crew were told of the loss of Columbia and the day before their new Progress re­supply craft was launched. Progress M47 arrived on 4 February to deliver 2,568 kg of various cargos to restock the station. There was 870 kg of propellant, 70 kg of water, 50 kg of oxygen and 1,328 kg of dry cargo. Significantly more limited than the payload capability of the Shuttle, it would nonetheless be these unmanned re-supply missions that would be crucial to maintaining operations at ISS over the next two to three years. The engines of Progress M47 were also used to reboost the station’s orbit slightly. TMA2 docked with the station on 28 April, carrying a two-man crew to take over the residency. The ISS-6 crew departed on 3 May in TMA1, with a severely restricted return payload capability. A computer failure led to a highly ballistic descent and resulted in the spacecraft landing far off target. The crew experienced almost 8 G during the entry. It took over two hours for rescue teams to reach the crew, who had exited the Descent Module. They had been unable to communicate due to a broken antenna on the DM, so in future, all crews would be issued with mobile satellite phones. Pettit was much the worst for wear of the three crew members after the landing, being photographed sitting on the ground looking clearly distressed and taking longer to recover than his colleagues. The problem was traced to the yaw gyroscope experiencing a gimbal lock when its angular rate exceeded 54 degrees. The crew were praised for their professionalism, and changes would be incorporated from TMA3 to prevent the problem re-occurring. Of course, TMA2 was already in orbit. Milestones 6th ISS resident crew 5th ISS EO crew to be launched by Shuttle 1st return to Earth in Soyuz (TMA) by NASA astronauts (Bowersox/Pettit) 1st NASA astronauts to return to Earth in a non-US spacecraft Flight Crew HUSBAND, Rick Douglas, 45, USAF, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-96 (2000) McCOOL, William Cameron, 41, USN, pilot BROWN, David McDowell, 46, USN, mission specialist 1 CHAWLA, Kalpana, 41, civilian, mission specialist 2, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-87 (1997) ANDERSON, Michael, 43, USAF, mission specialist 3, payload commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: STS-89 (1998) CLARK, Laurel Blair Salton, 41, USN, mission specialist 4 RAMON, Ilan, 48, Israeli Air Force, payload specialist 1 Flight Log The STS-107 research mission had been delayed several times due to changes in the manifest. In June 1997, a research module flight was scheduled for the third quarter of 2000. This was a dedicated mission to train scientists to take full advantage of the ISS research capabilities and to reduce the gap between the last planned Shuttle Spacelab science mission (STS-90) and the start of in-depth science research aboard ISS (around 2001). In 1998, STS-107, a multi-discipline flight, was scheduled for launch in 2000 with a follow-on mission authorised in 2001. In October 2002, the second mission was cancelled and the funds reallocated to support STS-107. The original schedule proposed the mission’s launch on 11 January 2001, but it would be two years and 13 delays before the flight finally lifted off on 16 January 2003. Though there were many delays, only a few were orbiter-related, specifically the removal of the Triana Recovered from a roll of unprocessed film discovered by searchers from the debris, this image shows the crew striking a flying pose for the camera. From left bottom: Chawla, Husband, Clark and Ramon (the Red Team). From left top row: Brown, McCool and Anderson (Blue Team) Earth observation satellite and its replacement with the Fast Reaction Experiments Enabling Science, Technology, Applications and Research (FREESTAR) payload and an extension of Columbia’s Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) by six months to correct problems with wiring. This saw the STS-109 Hubble service mission given higher priority. After Columbia had returned from STS-109 in March 2002, preparations began for the STS-107 mission, which was planned for 11 July. However, when cracks were found in a propellant duct liner aboard Atlantis, checks were made on the rest of the fleet and similar cracks were found on Columbia. The necessary repair work was accomplished during the summer, but this pushed the STS-107 mission into the new year. STS-107 marked the first flight of the Research DM SpaceHab configuration. This was a modification to the basic single or double module used for research and logistics. The RDM, outfitted as a laboratory, could carry 61 Space Shuttle lockers (27.2 kg of experiments) and six double racks (635 kg of experiments). It had two viewing ports and facilities to carry experiments on its flat external top surface. The STS-107 RDM included nine commercial payloads, four ESA payloads linked to ISS risk mitigation experiments, and 18 NASA Office of Biological and Physical Research payloads. On top of the module were three technology experiments and in the payload bay were six further experiments, including the FREESTAR that carried space physics and space sciences experiments and 11 student experiments from schools across the US. This was an international payload, with experiments sponsored by NASA, the US commercial sector, ESA, the Canadian Space Agency, the German Space Agency, the USAF, and schools in Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Liechten­stein and the USA. The crew were kept very busy conducting all these experiments, operating double twelve-hour shift pattern, with Husband, Chawla, Clark and Ramon forming the Red Shift and McCool, Brown and Anderson the Blue Shift. The return from the experiments and research onboard the RDM and the comments from the astronauts themselves all indicated a highly successful flight, and there was a strong possibility that a re-flight may have been authorised, based on the quality and quantity of the experiments conducted on this flight. When Columbia started the return home on 1 February, it appeared to have been another highly successful mission and there were high hopes for the future US space programme and continued research on ISS. However, 16 minutes from the planned landing at the Cape, all contact with the crew was lost. The vehicle had broken up in mid-air high above east Texas, claiming the lives of all seven astronauts. What followed was a seven-month enquiry, including a four-month search across Texas and neighbouring states to recover debris from the tragedy. Almost 85,000 items of orbiter debris were shipped to KSC for reconstruction to assist in determining what had caused the loss of the vehicle and her crew. Approximately 38 per cent of the dry weight of OV-102 was eventually recovered. Post-flight investigations indicated that a piece of foam insulation had become detached from the ET at launch and had struck the orbiter’s left wing as it ascended, creating either damage or a hole that seriously compromised the structural and thermal integrity of the vehicle at that point. Analysis of post-launch footage of the incident, as well as internal emails concerning the integrity of the vehicle, seemed to have underestimated the severity of the collision. STS-107 carried no RMS and there was no provision for EVA. Nor was the mission due to visit ISS, so there was no easy way of conducting an external inspection of the vehicle. When telemetry indi­cated to ground controllers that there was an off-nominal situation during the return to Earth, it was too late to do anything about it as the fiery plasma of re-entry breached the damaged wing and ripped Columbia apart. The tragedy, the second fatal Shuttle mission of the programme, came just days after the still-painful anni­versaries of the loss of the Apollo 1 crew (27 January 1967) and the Challenger crew (28 January 1986). It also signalled the end of the Shuttle programme, with the fleet scheduled to be decommissioned in 2010. In the meantime, it would be a long and difficult job to maintain the ISS and a hard, painful two-and-a-half-year effort to restore the Shuttle to flight. Even then, the uncertainties remained. Milestones 237th manned space flight 143rd US manned space flight 113th Shuttle mission 28th and last flight of Columbia 15th SpaceHab mission (9th double module) 1st flight of the Research DM (RDM) SpaceHab configuration 1st Israeli citizen in space (Ramon) 2nd Shuttle mission to end in fatalities « Previous 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 20 Next » Tweet Copyright © 2025 Aviation – airports, aircraft, helicopters … - Everything about aviation. Aviation News from around the world. Commercial and General Aviation, airports, airplanes, helicopters and other aircraft.