Category Manned Spaceflight Log II—2006-2012

Though each space flight is unique in its content, the profile for its preparation and execution is essentially the same: A mission is identified and assigned its objectives; a flight plan is created and the hardware prepared; the flight crew is selected and trained; then eventually the vehicle is launched, flies its mission, and then returns to Earth. All this is then followed by evaluations of the crew, research, and mission performance and examination of returned hardware in prep­aration for the next mission. This is a basic overview but it stands true for all successful missions flown to date, regardless of the country of origin, or mission objectives.

While this may be the plan, it does not always turn out that way. Human space flight is a high-performance, high-risk endeavor, which will always carry an element of danger for the mission, hardware, and crew. It has been demonstrated several times that accidents can occur during any of the stages of a mission, from training to recovery. For each of these potential risk areas, safety features, systems, and procedures were built in to help protect or possibly rescue a crew.

Some of these were introduced or modified for use on future flights only after an emergency had occurred during a previous mission.

Each crew is trained in emergency or contingency procedures and is provided with medical kits, escape equipment, and alternative flight plans to help deal with olf-nominal stations. Mission planners develop alternate mission profiles to gain at least something from the mission should the primary objective have to be aban­doned or curtailed, but this has to be done with crew safety in mind at all times. Though mission success is at the forefront of each crew in their execution of their flight, crew safety is the overriding factor and the primary responsibility of the mission commander. As much as each crew member would want to perform to the maximum and contribute as much as they could as a team member, they all have homes and families to return to. The expectation, excitement, and personal rewards of flying in space run strong in each crew member, but never as strongly as the desire to come home safely. Accepting the risk is part of being a space explorer, but these are not foolhardy individuals willing to risk their own fives or threaten the safety of others.

Across the globe in the Soviet Union, the cosmonauts remained focused upon crewing a series of Salyut (or Almaz) space stations, flying to and from the station in Soyuz. From 1978, the mission durations began to increase markedly, supported by the regular resupply flights of Progress vehicles. These “space freighters” delivered fresh supplies of fuel, air, water, food, equipment, and other small items of hardware. Once emptied by the crew, they could be filled with trash and unwanted material for a destructive burn-up in the atmosphere, thus freeing up valuable room on board the station.

During the Salyut missions, each two-man crew had their hands full completing all the assigned science objectives while maintaining the onboard systems and keeping the facility clean and habitable. Generally, the crewing on most missions included a military pilot cosmonaut as commander and either a design bureau flight engineer on the civilian Salyut or a military engineer on the Almaz missions. There were very few equivalent scientist astronauts in the cosmo­naut team and those who were selected, even with medical background, had little opportunity to fly on a mission. When the new variant Soyuz (Soyuz T) was intro­duced, it was once again possible to plan three-person crewing on the stations. However, when a third seat was available, it was normally filled by a second engineer from a design bureau (mostly from OKB-1, the Korolev design bureau), guest cosmonauts, or physician-cosmonauts.

From 1978, a change occurred for the visiting missions to a Salyut. The first civilian cosmonaut commanders (again from OKB-1) were accompanied by a representative from the East European/Interkosmos countries for short, week-long missions. The Interkosmos cosmonauts were certainly not of the “mission special­ist” class, and were mostly military officers who were given a short course of space training for a one-flight opportunity, mainly for political-propaganda reasons (and to install foreign equipment on the Salyut). Essentially it was a Soviet way of combining the roles of the Shuttle payload specialists and manned space flight engineers that would soon be seen on the Shuttle. The Interkosmos program evolved into a series of commercial agreements with other countries, which flew in the 1980s on Salyut 7 and Mir and later developed into the so-called “tourist flights” of “space flight participants” seen on the ISS in recent years.

In September 1977, the Soviets launched the second-generation Salyut 6 station, of which much was expected. Reports indicated that the first Soyuz mission to the station would be, in part, a proud celebration of the 20th anniver­sary of Sputnik 1. So when Soyuz 25 failed to dock successfully, it came as a bitter blow and cast a shadow over the all-rookie crew. Though they were later exonerated of all blame, the die was cast and significant changes were imple­mented for future crewing policy. By October 1977 there had been 14 Soyuz manned dockings attempted with either another Soyuz or a Salyut/Almaz station since October 1968. Six of these had failed. As a direct result of the Soyuz 25 failure, it was decided that no all-rookie crew would be flown again, especially not for such an important, high-profile mission. Eventually, the criteria were relaxed, but it would be another 17 years before the next all-rookie Russian Soyuz crew would launch (Soyuz TM-19 in April 1994 with Yuri Malenchenko and Talgat Musabayev aboard).

One of the problems was that there was no leeway in the docking attempt. The stripped-down battery version of Soyuz, used on Salyut station missions since 1974, had a limited independent orbital life of just two days, barely enough to get to and from the station in the first place. Unlike Apollo 14, which took six attempts to extract the LM from the top of the S-IVB stage en route to the Moon, repeated attempts at docking for the Soyuz were out of the question. It was an expensive lesson to learn, from the point of view of wasted resources and hardware. Improvements made for the Soyuz T helped to resolve the orbital flexibility of the spacecraft, but not before another failed docking had occurred in 1979 due to a malfunctioning main engine on the Soyuz.

When the missions to the stations were successful, it added to an ever growing database of long-duration information that would enable the Soviets/ Russians to develop their space station operations with greater confidence. Round-the-clock ground support for months on end; experiences of small crews working together in restricted confines of the orbital laboratory; masses of biome­dical information and psychological data (including the stresses of command, work over long periods of orbital flight, and the difficult decision of whether to tell a crewman in flight of a family bereavement or major incident back home). All of this was essential information to the growing program and those missions yet to come.

There were also plenty of challenges to overcome and learn from. The Soviet stations were limited in air-to-ground communications coverage, due to the lack of a global tracking network. Maintenance and housekeeping chores increased as the stations got older, making it difficult to strike a balance with important and often time-critical research objectives. From Salyut 6, there was the added dimension of disruptions to the routine from visiting crews, both at arrival and after departure. Operationally, the program had to learn about the challenges (and consequences) of docking more than one spacecraft to the station core module at the same time and the dynamic stresses on the whole structure this entailed. Postflight recovery techniques and protocols following such long missions also had to be improved—valuable lessons for even longer expeditions that were already being planned.

Salyut operations during the 1970s were also evolving the cosmonaut mission training cycle. For the Yostok missions, the Soviets had created a small training

group of cosmonauts taken from the larger corps, from which they would select the prime and reserve crews. This method had been successful and continued into the Salyut program. This experience, of having several crews going through the preparation cycle for assignment as reserve, backup, or prime crew, would prove highly successful and flexible. Separate training groups were formed for visiting crews, or to evaluate new versions of the Soyuz. These experiences would be adopted over 20 years later as the International Space Station evolved—a lasting tribute to the Soviet crewing policy devised in the Gagarin era.

2007-008A April 7, 2007

Pad 1, Site 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of

Kazakhstan

October 21, 2007

10 km from the settlement of Tolybai, Republic of Kazakhstan

Soyuz-FG (serial number Ц15000-019),

Soyuz TMA (serial number 220)

196 da 17 h 04 min 35 s (Yurchikhin, Kotov)

13 da 18 h 59 min 50 s (Simonyi down on TMA-9) Pulsar

ISS resident crew transport (14S), ISS-15 resident crew program, visiting crew 12 program

Flight Crew

YURCHIKHIN, Fyodor Nikolayevich, 48, civilian, RSA ISS commander, Soyuz TMA flight engineer, second mission Previous mission: STS-112 (2002)

KOTOV, Oleg Valerievich, 41, Russian Federation Air Force, RSA ISS flight engineer 1, Soyuz TMA commander

SIMONYI, Charles, 58, U. S.A., space flight participant, visiting crew 12 ISS-15 Shuttle-delivered crew members

WILLIAMS, Sunita Lyn, 41, USN, NASA ISS flight engineer 2 (up on STS-116, down on STS-117)

ANDERSON, Clayton Conrad, 48, civihan, NASA ISS flight engineer 2 (up on STS-117, down on STS-120)

Flight log

The 15th ISS resident crew launched along with the 12th visiting crew member, Charles Simonyi, aboard the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft. Two days later the Soyuz, under the command of rookie cosmonaut and medical doctor Oleg Kotov, docked with the Zarya FGB module. The commander of the expedition, Fyodor Yurchikhin (call sign Olympus), had previously visited the station five years before as a member of the American STS-112 mission and fulfilled the role of flight engineer for the Soyuz flight to and from the station. Kotov served as flight engineer 1 for the duration of the expedition, resuming the command of the Soyuz for the return home. Formal handover to the ISS-15 crew took place on April 17.

Two American (NASA) astronauts would complete the resident crew complement. Sunita Williams was already on board the station having arrived on STS-116 (12A.1) and having worked as part of the ISS-14 crew. She would continue with the ISS-15 crew before returning on STS-117 (13A) in the spring. Aboard that flight was her replacement, Clayton Anderson, who was to continue with the ISS-15 crew and then transfer over to the ISS-16 expedition before his own return to Earth on STS-120 later in 2007. This was the second in a series of resident crew exchanges via the Space Shuttle over the next three years. Both NASA astronauts were assigned to the MS5 position for ascent and descent on the Shuttle, transferring to the station’s resident crew in the ISS FE2 role.

The third TMA-10 crew member was space flight participant and naturalized U. S. citizen, Charles Simonyi, one of the founders of the Microsoft Corporation, who had developed Word and Excel computer software. Simonyi, who had been bom in Hungary, became the fifth space tourist and completed the longest stay on the ISS by a tourist up to that point. The duration of his visit had been decided upon by the requirement to land TMA-9 in Kazakhstan before sunset. During his time aboard the station, as the two main crews completed a series of handover activities, Simonyi completed a program of experiments that included a number of ESA life science experiments. He also wrote a log (which was not posted on his website until well after his return) and narrated video tours of the station. He landed with Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin in Kazakhstan aboard TMA-9 on April 21.

During the ISS-15 expedition, 272 sessions of 47 Russian experiments were planned, 43 of which were continuations of previous increments. The expedition also continued the program of experiments in the U. S. segment, totaling over 119 hours of planned operations. The ISS-15 increment received visits from three Shuttle crews: STS-117 (13A), STS-118 (13A.1), and STS-120 (10A). They also worked with the unmanned resupply vehicles Progress M-59, M-60, and M-61. In addition to their scientific activities and logistics transfers, the main crew com­pleted a wide range of maintenance, repair, and housekeeping duties throughout their stay on the station.

On April 16, during the handover activities, Sunita Williams became the first person to run a marathon while participating in a space flight. Using the TVIS treadmill she “ran” 26.2 miles (42.16 km) as competitor 14,000 of the Boston Marathon in 4 hours 24 minutes. Ten days later, Williams was told she would return on STS-117 instead of the original STS-118, which had slipped in its launch cycle due to the hail damage and З-month delay to STS-117. That mission arrived on June 10, carrying her replacement, Clayton Anderson. Sunita Williams returned on Atlantis after a mission of just under 195 days, surpassing the female space endurance record held by Shannon Lucid for the previous 11 years.

The ISS-15 residency would include three space walks totaling 18 hours 43 minutes: one from the U. S. segment and two from the Russian segment. Yurchikhin participated in all three excursions and was accompanied by Kotov on the first two space walks from the Pirs module at the Russian segment and by Anderson from the U. S. Quest module for the third.

The first EVA (May 30, 5h 25 min) involved attaching further debris shields around the Zvezda module and rerouting a high-frequency cable for a Russian GPS system. The second EVA (June 6, 5h 37 min) featured the installation of the Biorisk samples exposure experiment, which would be retrieved on a later EVA. More cables and debris panels were also installed. The third EVA (July 23, 7h 41 min) featured the removal and jettison by hand of two large structures: the VSSA Flight Support Equipment and the Early Ammonia Servicer.

On September 27, TMA-10 was relocated from the nadir port on Zarya to the aft port of Zvezda in an operation that took less than 28 minutes, clearing the Zarya port for other spacecraft operations.

Yurchikhin and Kotov handed over formal command of the station on October 19 to the recently arrived ISS-16 crew, before returning to Earth aboard the TMA-10 spacecraft on October 21 2007.

During the descent, the landing computer in the Descent Module of the Soyuz switched unexpectedly to a ballistic return trajectory, which would result in a landing short of the planned recovery zone. Though not in increased danger, the crew did have to endure g-loads about 2g higher than the nominal 5g (up to 7g max) and undershot the landing zone by about 340 km. This was similar to the reentry flown during TMA-1 on May 4, 2003.

Yurchikhin and Kotov landed with VC-13 Malaysian space flight participant Sheik Muszaphar Shukor A1 Masrie, who had arrived with the ISS-16 crew aboard Soyuz TMA-11. The landing of TMA-10 took place just 10 km from the settlement of Tolybai, Republic of Kazakhstan.

Milestones

252nd manned space flight 103 rd Russian manned space flight 96th manned Soyuz flight 10th manned Soyuz TMA mission 14th ISS Soyuz mission (14S)

12th ISS Soyuz visiting mission Kotov became Russia’s 100th cosmonaut Williams (April 16) “ran” the first marathon while in space

Flight crew

STURCKOW, Richard Frederick Wilford, 47, USMC, NASA commander, third mission

Previous missions-. STS-88 (1998), STS-105 (2001)

ARCHAMBAULT, Lee Joseph, 46, USAF, NASA pilot FORRESTER, Patrick Graham, 50, civilian, NASA mission specialist 1 SWANSON, Steven Roy, 46, civilian, NASA mission specialist 2 OLIVAS, John Daniel, 41, civilian, NASA mission specialist 3 REILLY II, James Francis, 53, civilian, NASA mission specialist 4, third mission

Previous missions: STS-89 (1998), STS-104 (2001)

ISS-15 crew member up only

ANDERSON, Clayton Conrad, 48, NASA mission specialist 5 and ISS-15 flight engineer 2

ISS-15 crew member down only

WILLIAMS, Sunita Lyn, 41, NASA mission specialist 5 and ISS-15 flight engineer 2

Flight log

This mission was manifested to deliver the S3/4 truss assembly and to exchange NASA resident station crew members Clayton Anderson and Sunita Williams.

Atlantis had arrived back at the Orbital Processing Facility on September 21, 2006 following the STS-115 mission. Processing for its next flight continued in the OPF until the orbiter was moved over to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)

for mating with the rest of the stack. The rollout to launchpad 39A occurred on February 15. However, on February 26, the thermal protection on both the orbiter and the External Tank suffered damage from hail. This was so severe that repairs could not be conducted on the pad. Atlantis had to be rolled back to the YAB on March 4 to complete the repairs and was returned to pad 39A until May 15.

The remainder of the processing and countdown proceeded as planned, with an on-time launch on June 8, 2007 and the 8 min ascent to orbit going according to plan. Initial orbit inspection of the left Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) later that day revealed that part of the thermal protection system appeared to have pulled away from adjacent thermal tiles. The crew used the RMS for a closer inspection. The following day, Archambault (assisted by Forrester and Swanson) used the RMS with the boom-mounted extension system to inspect both the heat shield on the leading edge of the orbiter wing and the vehicle’s nose cap.

Atlantis docked with the ISS at the PMA-2 port of the Destiny Laboratory on June 10. Following the traditional greeting between the Shuttle and station crews after hatch opening, the exchange between Anderson and Williams took place. Anderson became the new flight engineer on the ISS-15 resident crew, while Williams became a member of the STS-117 crew. The formal exchange included swapping the form-fitting Soyuz seat liners, which marked the point at which the two astronauts changed crews.

During the docked phase, four EYAs were completed by the Shuttle EVA crew from the Quest airlock, working in alternate teams of two. The initial EVA (6h 15 min on June 11) by Reilly and Olivas focused upon completing the attach­ment of bolts, cables, and connectors to the S3/4 truss segment and preparing for the deployment of its solar arrays. The EVA had been delayed for an hour after the ISS had temporarily lost its altitude control. This was not entirely unexpected because the movement of the 17.8-ton mass of the S3/4 truss (equivalent to the size of a bus) skewed the symmetry of the station, causing the control moment gyro to go offline.

The second EVA (June 13) was conducted by Forrester and Swanson in 7 hours 16 minutes. The previous day, station controllers had unfurled the solar arrays on the recently attached truss to soak up the Sun’s energy. The main task of this second EVA was to remove all of the launch locks which held the 3.4m wide solar alpha rotary joint in place. During the EVA, the crew ran into difficulty when Forrester found that commands intended for a drive lock assembly they were installing were in fact being sent to a drive lock assembly installed during the first EVA. As a result, ground controllers checked and confirmed the safe config­uration of the earlier installed assembly. The two astronauts also assisted with the retraction of an older solar array, which cleared the way to deploy the new array. A total of 13 of the 315 solar array bays were folded.

On June 15, Olivas and Reilly completed the third EVA of the mission, totaling 7 hours 58 minutes. During this EVA, they assisted with the retraction of the P6 truss, which required 28 commands over 45 minutes to complete the opera­tion. The two astronauts also addressed separate tasks. Olivas spent 2 hours stapling and pinning down a thermal blanket on the orbiter’s OMS pod, after a 10 x 25.5 cm comer had peeled up during ascent. Meanwhile, Reilly installed the hydrogen vent valve of a new oxygen generation system on the U. S. laboratory, Destiny.

Two days later (June 17), Forrester and Swanson ventured outside for the fourth and final EVA of this mission. During this 6h 29 min EVA, the two men relocated a TV camera from a stowage platform on the Quest airlock to a new position on the S3 truss. They also verified the drive lock assembly #2 configura­tions, as well as removing the final six solar alpha rotary joint launch restraints. After clearing a path for the Mobile Base System (MBS) on the S3 truss, several get-ahead tasks were completed. The two astronauts installed a computer network cable on the Unity node, opened the hydrogen vent valve on Destiny, and tethered two orbital debris shield panels on the Zvezda Service Module. Activation of the rotary joint meant there were now four U. S. solar arrays tracking the Sun during each orbit, providing much needed additional power for station operations.

Over the four EVAs, the astronauts logged 27 hours 58 minutes in total. Reilly and Olivas logged 14 hours 13 minutes on the first and third EVAs, while Forrester and Swanson accumulated 13 hours 45 minutes during EVAs 2 and 4.

During the docked phase of the mission, the Shuttle’s propulsion system was used to back up the station’s control and orbital attitude adjustment after the Russian segment computers which normally handle this task experienced prob­lems. Both Russian and U. S. teams on the ground worked on the problem, trou­bleshooting and then restoring the capabilities of the computer. On June 15, cosmonauts Yurchikhin and Kotov managed to get two of the three lines to each computer running after they bypassed an apparent faulty power switch with external cabling. This modification was repeated on the final two channels. Three days later the Russians demonstrated the ability to maintain station control using the computers, thus allowing Atlantis to depart.

After transferring 19 tons of food, water, and equipment across to the station, and now with Sunita Williams aboard, Atlantis undocked on June 19. Joint activ­ities had logged 8 days 19 hours 6 minutes. Piloted by Archambault, Atlantis completed a fly-around of the station, offering a good inspection and photo­documentation opportunity of the reconfigured outpost. At a distance of74 km from the station, the Atlantis crew then used the RMS and boom sensor system to inspect the orbiter’s thermal protection system on both wing leading edges and the nose cap.

Three days later, after a 24 h delay due to adverse weather, Atlantis arrived safely on runway 21 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, after marginal weather had again prevented a landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Cape in Florida. Setting a new record for female space flight endurance, Sunita Williams logged just short of 195 days in space during her residency.

The transfer of Atlantis back to the Cape did not begin immediately. After several days of preparation, the orbiter was bolted to the top of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (Boeing 747). Following several fuel stops and weather delays, the combination finally arrived back at the Cape on July 3.

Milestones

253rd manned space flight 148th U. S. manned space flight 118th Shuttle mission 28th flight of Atlantis 21st Shuttle TSS mission

Heaviest station payload carried by Shuttle to date (42,671 lb) (19,355.5 kg) First launch from Pad 39A since STS-107 Columbia in January 2003 Suni Williams set a new endurance record of 195 days for the longest single space flight by a female, surpassing the 188-day record of Shannon Lucid set in 1996

Flight Crew

KELLY, Scott Joseph, 43, USN, NASA commander, second mission Previous mission: STS-103 (1999)

HOBAUGH, Charles Owen, 45, USMC, NASA pilot, second mission Previous mission: STS-104 (2001)

CALDWELL, Tracy Ellen, 37, civilian, NASA mission speciahst 1 MASTRACCHIO, Richard Alan, civilian, NASA mission specialist 2, second mission

Previous mission: STS-106 (2000)

WILLIAMS, Daffyd (David) Rhys, 53, civilian (Canadian), CSA mission specialist 3, second mission Previous mission: STS-90 (1998)

MORGAN, Barbara Radding, 55, civihan, NASA mission specialist 4 DREW, Benjamin Alvin, 44, USAF, NASA mission speciahst 5

Flight log

This mission continued the installation of the solar array truss segment and also featured the flight of the first educator astronaut—a teacher turned astronaut.

As a result of a major modification program for Endeavour, and the recovery from the loss of Columbia, launch preparations took some time. The orbiter had arrived at the OPF on December 7, 2002 following the landing of STS-113. Endeavour remained at the Cape for the next four years, being moved between facilities as required for both mission processing and upgrades. During the modifi­cation period, Endeavour, the newest of the orbiter fleet, received a number of upgrades including the installation of a “glass cockpit”, a global positioning system to be used as an aid for landing and the Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer

System (SSTPS). This would enable the orbiter to draw power from the station while docked with it, extending the time it could remain at the station.

On January 9, 2004 Endeavour was moved to the VAB for maintenance, returning to the OPF Bay 2 on January 21. On December 16 that year Endeavour was moved to High Bay 4 in the VAB for storage. Then, on January 12, 2005, the orbiter was relocated back to OPF Bay 2 once again. The move to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) hangar on February 22 was to make room to conduct planned modifications to the OPF. Endeavour returned to the Processing Facility on March 18, where it remained for the next two years. Following mission proces­sing for STS-118, Endeavour was rolled over to the VAB on July 2, 2007 for mating to the External Tank (ET) and two SRBs. The STS-118 stack was rolled out to Pad 39A on July 11, 2007.

Despite some problems with a stubborn side hatch on the Endeavour, the mission launched on time, heading into the early evening sky just before sunset. On board was the crew of seven, the SS truss, the Spacehab module, and the External Storage Platform #3, which included a Control Moment Gyroscope (CMG) to replace a faulty one on the station. The following day, the crew used the Shuttle’s robotic arm and Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) to take a close look at the vehicle’s heat shielding over the leading edge of the wings.

Shortly before docking with the station on August 10, commander Scott Kelly maneuvered Endeavour in a backflip, allowing the resident ISS crew to take digital photos of the underside of the vehicle and its upper surfaces to check the thermal protection system for possible damage. Subsequent analysis of this imagery revealed a 3" (8 cm) round dent on the starboard underside. Further inspection and analysis of the images and data showed that the damage had penetrated a tile down to the internal framework. Over several days, while the crew continued work on the station, the Mission Management Team (MMT) evaluated the evidence and authorized a further engineering analysis and series of tests. It was determined that direct tile repair by the crew on a contingency EVA was not required and that the damage would not pose a risk to the crew during reentry. It was therefore decided to leave the damaged tile alone until after landing. This decision revealed growing confidence in the changes introduced since the loss of Columbia, better capability in interpreting inspection imagery, and more understanding of the effects of minor damage on the TPS.

Endeavour docked to the station on August 10 while orbiting 214 miles (344.32 km) above the southern Pacific Ocean, northeast of Sydney, Australia. The MMT initially extended the flight to 14 days following a successful transfer of power from the station by means of the SSPTS. This enabled a fourth space walk to be added to the flight plan. However, later in the mission, with growing concern over the movement of Hurricane Dean towards the coast of Texas, the MMT decided to shorten the flight and end the mission one day early.

The mission’s four space walks logged 23 hours 13 minutes in total. Rick Mastracchio and Canadian astronaut Dave Williams each completed three EVAs, with ISS-16 flight engineer Clayton Anderson joining Mastracchio for the third EVA and Williams for the fourth and final EVA.

During the first EVA (August 11, 6h 17min) installation of the 2-ton, lift long spacer, Starboard 5 (S5) segment of the truss structure was completed. The astronauts also retracted the forward heat-rejecting radiator from the P6 truss assembly. This was planned for relocation to the end of the port truss during the following STS-120 mission. The mission’s second EVA (August 13, 6h 28 min), focused upon installation of the 6001b (272.16 kg) CMG onto the Z1 segment of the station truss assembly. The failed unit was removed and stored outside the station pending its planned return to Earth on a later mission.

During the third excursion (August 15, 5h 28 min), Anderson and Mastracchio relocated the S-band antenna subassembly from P6 to PI. They then installed a new transponder on PI as well as retrieving the P6 transponder. Mean­while, inside the station Pilot Charles Hobaugh and resident station flight engineer Oleg Kotov moved two CETA (Crew and Equipment Translation Aid) carts. It was during this EVA that Mastracchio noticed a hole in the thumb of his left pressure glove. As it was only through to the second of five layers it did not create a leak or endanger the astronaut. As a precaution, however, he returned to the airlock while Anderson completed the final tasks.

The fourth and final EVA of the mission (August 18, 5 h 2 min), conducted by Williams and Anderson, featured a number of lesser tasks, including installation of the External Wireless Instrumentation System (EWIS) antenna, installation of a stand for the temporary relocation of the Shuttle RMS extension boom, and retrieval of the two material experiment containers which were to be returned on Endeavour. The two other tasks planned for this EVA were deferred to a future space walk. These were relocating a toolbox to a more central location and cleaning up and securing the debris shielding. During each of the EVAs fellow crew members Caldwell and Morgan used the Shuttle and station RMS devices to move and locate the 7,0001b (3175.2 kg) number 3 external storage platform that would be installed on the P3 truss.

On August 11, the primary command and control computer in the U. S. segment shut down unexpectedly. Fortunately this shutdown did not affect the EVA being conducted that day. The redundancy in the system worked as designed, with the secondary computer taking over and the third computer providing a backup role. Ground controllers brought up the third computer after determining that an errant software command was the cause of the shut­down.

Mission specialist Barbara Morgan was a professional teacher turned astronaut, who had originally been chosen as a backup payload specialist to fellow teacher Christa McAuliffe in 1985 under the Teacher in Space Program. Tragically, McAuliffe died in the January 1986 Challenger accident. Morgan continued her association with NASA and returned to teaching, but in 1998 she was chosen as an educator mission specialist in the 17th NASA astronaut group. During STS-118, Morgan conducted three educational events and on several occa­sions she and her colleagues answered questions from children at the Discovery Center in Boise, Idaho and the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Virginia and Saskatchewan, Canada.

Endeavour undocked from the Station on August 19 after 8 days 17 hours 54 minutes of joint operations. Ironically, the expected threat from Hurricane Dean never materialized but by then the orbiter was committed to an early return— weather permitting. There was indeed fine weather as the landing took place on Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC on the first opportunity.

Milestones

254th manned space flight 149th U. S. manned space flight 119th Shuttle mission 20th flight of Endeavour 22nd Shuttle ISS mission

Morgan became the first educator mission specialist to fly in space The Zarya module completed its 50,000th orbit (August 14), as the oldest element of ISS

Installation of ESP3 using just the Space Station and Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) without help of EVA astronauts as on previous two installations

First use of the Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System Caldwell celebrates her 38 th birthday (August 14)

For centuries, humans dreamed of exploring the heavens above the blue sky, creating vivid stories of exploring the void amongst the stars. But the first hurdle was to devise a system for leaving the ground and surviving the adventure. Our atmosphere was the first barrier, together with the substantial hurdle of gravity. Understanding the “science” was beyond the early dreamers and planners. For centuries, observations of the night sky were based upon myth, religion, legend, belief, fear, and the imagination. One of the first “space sciences”, without actually being known as such, was the study of the stars, our Sun and Moon and the movement of the “heavenly bodies” we know as the planets. This was all grouped under what became known as “astrology” before serious scientific study of the cosmos became “astronomy”. Even today, we continue to use the same names for constellations and planets first derived in both “astrology” and “astronomy” by observers from ages past.

The early writers scribed stories of ascending to the heavens by means of woven baskets carried by flocks of geese, or wearing wings of feathers. Eventually, we began utilizing the new art of “balloons” to ascend though the atmosphere, hoping to reach as high as the Moon to visit the inhabitants thought to live there. As strange and weird as these writings are to the modern world, they can be inter­preted another way, in that these studies helped to discover new “sciences”. We began to study the atmosphere more closely, develop telescopes to look at the moon, planets, and stars, evaluate materials, and determine why it was so difficult to follow the ideas of dreamers and writers to reach the heavens. Gradually, the sciences refined these early dreams into the theories, principles, and under­standing we needed to develop the right method of reaching the stars—that of rocketry.

That method was first discovered by the ancient Chinese in the gunpowder projectiles used in conflict and celebrations. By the end of the 19th century, the theorists and dreamers had started realizing that the rocket would indeed be the best vehicle to explore the known vacuum of space and to get humans off the ground, to attain the required height and speed to circle the Earth and not fall

immediately back to the ground. The problem then was to create rockets capable of carrying not only instruments and biological samples, but the first humans beyond the atmosphere.

As the 20th century dawned, so did the understanding of the relatively new science of rocketry under the banner of “astronautics”. The huge developments that came over the relatively short period between 1900 and 1960 were amazing. True, rockets had been around for some time, but as weapons of war. Turning that effort towards the stars was, to a degree, another method of waging war, a strategic race to win the high ground. Scientific exploration was only a secondary consideration. But the “space race” brought the rocket that led us to orbit and we have not looked back since.

Though accidents and tragedy have occurred in preparations for space flight, the most likely accident scenarios occur during the mission itself, the first of which is the ascent from the launchpad into orbit. Sitting inside a spacecraft, strapped to thousands of gallons (or liters) of highly explosive fuel, the crew needs some assur­ance that if things go wrong there is at least a chance to get out, however unlikely the disaster or slim the chance of surviving it.

Crew escape systems varied with the design of each spacecraft. There were pad escape systems, incorporated into the launchpads to allow the crew either to vacate the pad inside the spacecraft or quickly exit the vehicle and clear the launch area. Slide wires and escape chutes were incorporated into the towers built for Apollo, Shuttle, and Buran, while escape from any potential explosion could be achieved by escape tower on Mercury, Apollo, Soyuz, and Shenzhou, or by ejection seats on Gemini. Each countdown process includes periods of evaluation built into the launch preparations as well as options to abort the launch before the critical time. Such safeguards continue to feature in the operational launch procedures of both Soyuz and Shenzhou.

During the Shuttle program, several launch attempts were abandoned due to the weather or over equipment concerns. Most of these were canceled long before the vehicle was committed to engine ignition. On five occasions, there was a “Redundant Set Launch Sequencer” (RSLS) abort called, which occurred between the ignition of the three main engines at 6.6 seconds before liftoff and the lighting of the solid rocket boosters at T — 0 seconds. If computers (not humans) sensed a problem in the main engines, the launch would be aborted, preventing the SRBs from igniting. The SRBs could not be turned off once ignited, thus committing the Shuttle to launch and at least 123 seconds of flight since no abort was possible prior to SRB separation, even if a main engine failed. Fortunately, the RSLS

system worked as designed on all five occasions (STS-41D in 1984, STS-51F in 1985, STS-55 in 1993, STS-51 also in 1993, and STS-68 in 1994).

Once a vehicle has left the pad, the options for escape from a pending explosion are more limited. There must at least be time to identify and react to the problem in the first place. Things happen rapidly in space flight and the journey from pad to orbit only takes eight to ten minutes. Events can occur in seconds, or even microseconds, so the technology has to be able to react quickly. Sometimes, there simply is no time to react and tragedy occurs.

The first manned spacecraft featured two methods of crew escape during launch. Vostok carried an ejection seat for its solo pilot, while Mercury incorpo­rated a launch escape tower. The tower idea was continued for Apollo and was later incorporated on Soyuz and, more recently, Shenzhou. One reason for this is simply that there was insufficient room or mass capacity to provide an ejection system for every crew member once the single-seat spacecraft were phased out. Ejection seats were retained for Gemini as it was thought more suit­able than an escape tower for that program. Like Vostok, these seats could be used for crew escape during recovery operations as well as for problems occurring during ascent.

For those programs using the escape tower, it was available for emergencies on the pad, but during ascent it was jettisoned at ballistic recovery altitude or once orbital speed was attained, which rendered the tower system unusable. For recovery, these spacecraft relied on parachutes (and, in the case of Soyuz and Shenzhou, the retro-rockets) to reduce the landing impact velocity.

These options were not available for Voskhod and Shuttle. For the amended Yostok, flying as Voskhod, crew escape was virtually impossible and the landing risky. Though promoted as an “improved”, or “upgraded” spacecraft, Voskhod was in fact nothing more than a stripped-down Vostok. It was designed to carry a crew of up to three instead of one, mainly for the purpose of achieving spectacular space firsts ahead of the Americans. It was a risky, and lucky, two-mission program.

With additional crew members, the ejection seat had to be removed, leaving the crew no method of pad or launch escape. This also affected the safe recovery of the two crews, as they could not eject prior to landing. The retro-rocket package that was added was essential for the crew to survive the landing impact. Both missions were completed without any serious incidents, but it was fortunate that nothing went wrong. This could have been a prime reason for the cancellation of the program after only two flights, moving on to the more capable Soyuz with its built-in soft-landing system.

For the American Shuttle, things were more complicated. With crews numbering up to seven, crew escape had limited options. For both the atmo­spheric landing tests using Enterprise in 1977 and the first four orbital test flights on Columbia, the two-person crews did have ejection seats for emergency escape during ascent or descent. Fortunately these were not required on the actual mis­sions. On Columbia, they were deactivated for STS-5 and removed for STS-9. No other Shuttle orbiter carried the system, as two-person Shuttle crews ceased with STS-4. Escape capsules were considered, but were deemed impractical for the spacecraft’s design.

Following the loss of Challenger in 1986, a slide pole was installed. Each of the crew wore escape pressure suits and had the capability to leave the vehicle to descend on their own parachutes—at least in theory. Crews trained for such evacuations as part of their mission preparation. Fortunately, this type of escape was never called upon. It would have required the vehicle to be in a relatively stable flight mode for the crew to avoid hitting somewhere on the orbiter as they evacuated through the side hatch. The Shuttle Orbiter was essentially a glider as it came home, capable of landing on the ground or even on the ocean, so evacuating the vehicle in stable flight seemed contrary to what it was designed to do—a controlled stable glide to an unpowered landing.

Conditions inside the orbiter as it fell through the atmosphere in an uncontrolled state would surely have made the slide pole an unlikely solution to crew escape. With the vehicle possibly breaking up in flight, the crew of up to seven would have had to leave their seats on the flight deck and mid-deck, moving around in bulky pressure suits to hook up to the slide pole. Then they would have had to hope to miss all the trailing debris as the vehicle dropped like a stone towards Earth.

In 2003, there was no time for the Columbia crew to react to the impending disaster. They were too high and traveling too fast to use the escape pole, even if they had had time to consider it.

During ascent, the Shuttle had a number of abort modes, giving the crew the option to return to the landing site, take it over the Atlantic to land at specific sites in Europe or Africa, to fly a single orbit and land on the next pass, or to abort the ascent into a low orbit. In the latter case, onboard systems would gradually have raised the orbit to at least an operational level, enabling the crew to conduct an alternative mission and probably return early. When the Shuttle launch abort modes were devised, each crew hoped they would not be called upon. They were there should the need arise and it did so during the 19th mission (STS-51F), in July 1985. On that mission, the loss of a main engine resulted in an abort to orbit and a revised, but still highly successful mission.

The abort modes were not new ideas. During Apollo, there were stages in the ascent where the mission could be aborted early to an emergency recovery in the Atlantic or to attain a lower-than-planned orbit to give the crew and Mission Control time to evaluate what to do next. The lunar missions featured points at which mission progress could be evaluated and the decision made whether to con­tinue. For most of the Apollo missions, each of these decision points was passed to allow the missions to achieve most of what was planned. The exception, of course, was Apollo 13. Here, the redundancy built into the design of the program came to the forefront and contributed to the recovery of the crew. But there were still points at which the skills and endurance of the crew and ground controllers were pushed to the limit.

It is interesting to note that, apparently, when the Astronaut Office was approached to fly a test demonstration of the Shuttle return to launch site abort mode, their response was that it could be tested when it was needed. Clearly, turning the stack around in flight and heading back to the launch site minutes after leaving it was not a favored option for the astronauts, even given their varied and very capable flying experiences. Thankfully it was never put into practice.

At the start of the new decade, Salyut 6 operations were winding down. Its last operations included the demonstration of the first add-on module docked to the core, in preparation for the launch of its replacement, Salyut 7, in 1982. Similar in appearance to the previous station, the new facility would continue where Salyut 6 left off, flying increasingly longer missions, with further visiting crews (this time more international than Interkosmos in nature). It would also see the first on- orbit partial crew exchanges and introduce a further add-on module to the main core station. Salyut 7 would also feature new endurance records for two expedi­tion crews (212 then 237 days), with a further residency of 150 days by a third crew in addition to partial crew residences of 112, 168, and 64 days.

In 1984, and again during 1985, cosmonauts demonstrated the value of having a crew in space when things go wrong by overcoming serious problems to keep the station operating successfully. These activities safely extended its working life until 1986 when a new, improved station appeared. The final crew was able to visit Salyut 7 in 1986 to complete the planned program.

Salyut operations were expected to be the mainstay of orbital operations for the Soviets for the rest of the decade. It was not exactly clear what form the much anticipated Salyut 8 would take, nor was it evident how things were about to dramatically change, not just in the national space program but also across the Soviet Union itself. This would have considerable global consequences as the decade closed.

As the Soviets transitioned from Salyut 6 to Salyut 7, the headlines were being generated by the return of American astronauts to orbit after a gap of six years. It was the start of the Space Shuttle era.

Flight crew

MALENCHENKO, Yuri Ivanovich, 45, Russian Federation Air Force, RSA Soyuz TMA commander, ISS flight engineer 1; fourth mission Previous missions’. Soyuz ТМ19/МІГ EC-16(1994), STS-106 (2000), Soyuz TMA-2/ISS-7 (2003)

WHITSON, Peggy Annette, 47, NASA Soyuz TMA flight engineer, ISS-16

commander; second mission

Previous mission-. STS-111/STS-113/ISS-5 (2002)

MUSZAPHAR, Shukor A1 Masrie, 35, Malaysian space flight participant ISS resident crew Shuttle transfers

ANDERSON, Clayton Conrad, 48, NASA ISS flight engineer 2 TANI, Daniel Michio, 46, NASA ISS flight engineer 2; second mission Previous mission-. STS-108 (2001)

EYHARTS, Leopold, 50, French Air Force, ESA (French) ISS flight engineer 2; second mission

Previous mission-. Soyuz TM27/26/Mir (1998)

REISMAN, Garrett Erin, 40, NASA ISS flight engineer 2

Flight log

This was, by any account, a busy residency, which officially took over from the ISS-15 crew on October 19, 2007. During this 16th expedition to the ISS, the expansion of scientific facilities at the station finally resumed after the tragedy of Columbia. This included installation of an additional node (#2, named Harmony),

the European Laboratory (Columbus), and the first elements of the Japanese experiment facility (Kibo). The mission also featured the now familiar routine maintenance chores, expansion of the science program, and hosting the arrival of the first ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle (Jules Verne), laden with over 4.6 tons of cargo for the station.

There were three Shuttle assembly missions during this expedition, in addition to partial crew rotation of four members of the main expedition crew, docking of further Progress resupply craft, and four planned EVAs. Three of these would be from the U. S. segment and one from the Russian segment. During the three Shuttle missions, a further 12 EVAs were completed by Shuttle crew members.

The two ISS-16 main resident crew members docked with the Zarya Module on October 12. On board with them was Malaysian space flight participant Sheikh

Shukor A1 Masrie Muszaphar, flying a 10-day mission. During the main residency, the core crew would be joined by three NASA astronauts and one ESA astronaut, all serving in sequence as ISS FE2 and all launched and returned via the U. S. Space Shuttle.

The Malaysian ‘Angkasa MSM Project’ was agreed with Russia under a contract signed on September 29, 2005. This involved a programme of science research activities and experiments to be conducted by a Malaysian citizen flying as a SFP on the thirteenth ISS visiting crew. The programme consisted of thirteen experiments; eight were Malaysian national experiments, while the other three were joint investigations with ESA. In addition, there was a range of public rela­tions and symbolic activities planned. The experiment programme included 31 sessions for 8 experiments over five of the ten days in space. Two of the experi­ments were performed during the two-day flight of the Soyuz TMA spacecraft on the way to the station, with the remainder performed aboard the complex itself. These included four life science experiments, three biotechnology experiments and one education experiment. In total, approximately 18 hours were assigned for Shukor to complete the programme, occasionally assisted by Malenchenko. On October 21, 2007, after a flight of 11 days, Shukor returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-10, together with the returning ISS-15 crew members Fydor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov after their six month mission.

When TMA-11 docked with the station, NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson was already aboard serving as FE2, having been delivered to the station by STS – 117 (13A). He would remain aboard as FE2 with the ISS-16 crew until his replace­ment, Dan Tani, arrived on STS-120 (ЮА) and then come home with the STS-120 crew. Tani would return on STS-122 (IE), which delivered his replacement, French ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts. Eyharts would support the installation and early setup activities of the European Columbus Experiment Module before himself being replaced by NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman. Reisman arrived with the first elements of the Japanese Laboratory Module on STS-123 (1J/A), on which Eyharts would return, and would remain onboard station with the ISS-17 crew when the ISS-16 main crew departed in the spring.

The Russian research program featured 251 sessions of 55 experiments, 44 of which were continuations of earlier studies, while 11 were brand new. To accom­plish this objective, the crew had been allocated over 217 hours to operate the experiments during the expedition, mostly by Malenchenko. Across in the American segment, there were 38 experiments being conducted and, with the deliv­ery of the Columbus module towards the end of the residency, an increasing amount of work on the European science program. Hardware and supplies delivered for the Japanese segment during the residency meant that the program of experiments planned for that facility would at last also be approaching fruition.

The ISS-16 crew would also work with the Progress M-61, M-62, and M-63 resupply vehicles during their time on the station. The major hardware delivered by the three Shuttle missions were the Harmony 2 Node (STS-120); the ESA Columbus Module (STS-122), the Pressurized Section of the Japanese Experimen­tal Logistics Module (ELM-PS), and the Canadian Space Agency Special Purpose

Dexterous Manipulator, known as Dextre (STS-123). The 12 EVAs completed by the Shuttle crews were split between STS-120 (four EVAs), STS-122 (three EYAs), and STS-123 (a record five EVAs). Before formally joining the resident crew, Dan Tani assisted on the second EVA of STS-120 (6h 33 min) on October 28 and Greg Reisman assisted on the STS-123 EVA 1 on March 13 (7 h lmin) during installation of the Japanese elements (see STS-123).

The ISS-16 crew itself completed a program of five EVAs during their residency. The first three (November 9, 6h 55 min; November 20, 7h 16 min; November 24, 7h 4 min) were associated with the relocation of the PMA-2 and Harmony Node 2 using the Canadarm2 during November 12-14, while the final two space walks saw the astronauts work on the starboard solar array truss.

In total, Whitson accumulated 35 hours 21 minutes across the five EVAs; Malenchenko logged 6 hours 55 minutes on the expedition’s first EVA with Whitson, and Tani, who participated with Whitson for EVA 2 through 5, accumu­lated 28 hours 26 minutes on the ISS-16 crew in addition to that of his STS-120 EVA.

One of the hardest personal challenges to face is the loss of a family member. It is even harder when there is some distance involved and if you are off the planet, adding further barriers to overcoming the grief. Telling a crew member of a personal loss has always been a difficult decision for the ground support team, one that had to be addressed during this residency. Dan Tani was informed on December 20 that his mother, Rose, had died in an automobile accident. He was informed over the private communication loop by his wife, who was also a flight surgeon. Over the next few days, the astronaut was allowed to grieve and conducted a number of private calls to family members over the secure video channel. Tani was the first American crew member to lose a close relative while participating in a space flight.

The ISS-16 main crew of Whitson and Malenchenko returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-11 on April 19, 2008, along with South Korean VC-14 crew member So Yeon Yi, who had arrived with the ISS-17 main crew aboard TMA-12. The formal change of command between the two resident crews had occurred on April 17. Reisman continued his residency with the ISS-17 crew, until he was replaced during STS-124 (1J).

The landing of TMA-11 in the Republic of Kazakhstan was not as smooth as planned. The descent module performed a ballistic reentry, with the crew enduring loads of 8.5g for a short time. The separation of the Orbital Module from the Descent Module occurred without incident, but when the Descent Module tried to separate from the Instrument Module a bolt remained attached, resulting in the configuration entering the atmosphere sideways and creating a raging sheath of flame outside the windows. It was the rigidity of the Soyuz design that protected the crew, until the two spacecraft elements finally (and thankfully) pulled apart, allowing the Descent Module to make a harrowing, but otherwise safe landing 420 km short of the planned recovery zone.

Following the mission, postflight debrief, and recovery, in October 2009 Peggy Whitson assumed the role of Chief NASA Astronaut. She was the first female and non-pilot to achieve this coveted role. Malenchenko, meanwhile, resumed ISS training for a return to station as a member of a new resident crew.

Milestones

255th manned space flight 104 th Russian manned space flight 97th manned Soyuz flight 11th manned Soyuz TMA mission 15th ISS Soyuz mission (15S)

13 th ISS Soyuz visiting mission Whitson becomes 1st female ISS commander

New EVA record by a female in a career total of 39 hours 46 minutes across six EVAs

Flight crew

MELROY, Pamela Ann, 46, USAF Ret., NASA commander, third mission Previous missions-. STS-92 (2000), STS-112 (2002)

ZAMKA, George David, 45, USMC, NASA pilot PARAZYNSKI, Scott Edward, 46, civilian, NASA mission specialist 1, fifth mission

Previous missions-. STS-66 (1994), STS-86 (1997), STS-95 (1998), STS-100 (2001) WILSON, Stephanie Diana, 41, civilian, NASA mission specialist 2, second mission

Previous mission: STS-121 (2006)

WHEELOCK, Douglas Harry, 47, U. S. Army, NASA mission specialist 3 NESPOLI, Paolo, 50, civilian (Italian), ESA mission specialist 4

ISS resident crew members

TANI, Daniel Michio, 46, civilian, NASA mission specialist 5 (up), ISS-16 flight engineer, second mission Previous mission: STS-108 (2001)

ANDERSON, Clayton Conrad, 48, civihan, NASA mission specialist 5 (down), ISS-16 flight engineer

Flight log

The primary objective of this mission was to deliver the Node 2 (Harmony) facility and relocate the P6 truss. This mission also featured the exchange of NASA astronaut Dan Tani (ISS-16 FE2) with ISS-15/16 flight engineer Clayton Anderson on the station.

Mission processing went relatively smoothly, with Discovery arriving at the OPR on December 22, 2006, following the STS-116 landing. Processing continued with the rollover of Discovery from the OPF to the VAB on September 23, 2007 for stacking with the ET and SRBs. A week later, on September 30, the STS-120 stack was rolled to Pad 39A.

The October 23 launch was on time and docking with the station was accomplished without incident. Discovery docked with the ISS at PMA-2 on Harmony on October 25, 2007 and later the same day Tani formally took over from Anderson as ISS-16 FE2. Anderson had spent a total of only seven days as a member of ISS-16, but had accumulated 131 days as a member of the ISS-15 crew. By the end of the STS-120 mission Anderson had logged a total of 148 days on the ISS and 152 days in space.

The completion of docking and hatch-opening operations on this mission would see the historic first greeting in space between a female commander of a Shuttle mission (Melroy) and a female commander of the Space Station (Peggy Whitson).

The main focus of STS-120 activity centered upon the installation of the new node (on October 26) and repair to the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) during the second EVA. In addition to the EVAs, the crew transferred over 2,0201b (916.27 kg) of equipment and scientific samples to the Shuttle and delivered additional supplies to the station. Amongst the range of items being returned to

Earth for postflight analysis were metal shavings from the SARJ, to determine the probable cause of resistance in the starboard joint.

Paulo Nespoli, the third Italian to fly on the Shuttle, would serve as Inter Vehicular Activity (IVA) crew member for the planned EVAs. He would also complete a joint science program devised by the European and Italian space agencies under the label “Esperia”, from the ancient Greek name for the Italian peninsula. This program included a range of human physiology and biology experiments as well as a number of educational activities.

The station management added a 360-degree visual inspection of the station starboard SARJ to the second EVA after it had shown increased friction for the past 30 days. Between the fourth and fifth EVAs, an extra day was added to the mission to allow the crew additional off-duty time and to prepare equipment for the fifth EVA. However, when a repair to a torn solar array was required on the fourth EVA the priorities changed, so the objectives of the fifth EVA would be completed by the station crew after the Shuttle had departed.

On the ground, teams worked around the clock to devise a workable plan for the repair. The crew fabricated a solar array hinge stabilizer from strips of aluminum, a hole punch, a bolt connector, and approximately 20 meters of wire. The stabilizer would work in a similar fashion to a cuff link on a shirt. The wire was fed through a hole on the array and was supported by the strip of aluminum. The astronauts also positioned the station’s Robotic Arm and Mobile Transporter at the end of the truss to serve as a “cherry picker” and work platform. To protect against electrical currents while working, the astronauts insulated the tools with Kapton tape.

During the first EVA (October 26, 6h 14 min), mission specialists Parazynski and Wheelock assisted with the installation of the Harmony Module (Node 2) to its temporary location and also readied the P6 for its planned relocation two days later. In addition, the two astronauts closed a window cover on Harmony that had inadvertently opened during the launch phase and retrieved a failed radio communication antenna. After their return to the station, Wheelock noticed a small hole in the outer layer of his right pressure glove thumb. This would be evaluated later, prior to his next EVA. Post-EVA analysis of the gloves revealed excessive wear, requiring a replacement glove for his next excursion on the mission’s third EVA.

The next day, the hatches into the new module were opened and ISS-16 commander Peggy Whitson and ESA astronaut Nespoli were the first to float inside. As this was a new addition to the station, both crew members wore protec­tive face masks and goggles in case of any floating debris not picked up in the rigorous ground processing. Air samples were taken and a process to refresh the air was run about five times inside the module as part of the unit’s safety acceptance as a permanent element on the station.

For the second EVA (October 28, 6h 33 min), Parazynski was accompanied by ISS-16 flight engineer Dan Tani. The main objective of this excursion was to disconnect cables from the P6 Truss, which would enable it to be removed from the ZI Truss. The two astronauts outfitted the Harmony Module, mated the power and data grapple feature, and reconfigured connections to the SI Truss that would allow the radiator on SI to be deployed by a ground command from the Control Center at a later date. In a busy EVA, Tani also inspected the SARJ and collected “shavings” he found under the joint’s multilayer insulation cover. Mission managers authorized a limited use of the SARJ while the anomaly was assessed further and a repair plan formulated.

On October 30, the extra day added to the mission was announced. The originally planned 4 h 45 min EVA 4 would now be extended to a full duration of 6 hours 30 minutes and would be devoted to inspection of the starboard SARJ, instead of the previously planned demonstration of the Tile Repair Ablator Dispenser in the payload bay of Discovery. This would be deferred to a later mission. The fifth EVA would now be conducted by ISS-16 crew members Whitson and Malenchenko, completing further work on outfitting the exterior of the Harmony Module.

Parazynski and Wheelock paired up again for EVA 3 (October 30, 2 h 8 min), with Wheelock wearing one of the spare EVA gloves. During this space walk, the astronauts installed the P6 Truss segment (with its set of solar arrays) in its per­manent position. In addition, they installed a spare main bus switching unit on a storage platform, for future use if required. Parazynski examined the port SARJ and compared it with the starboard one, finding it clear of debris. Towards the end of this EVA, when the P6 solar arrays were deployed, a tear appeared in one of the blankets. To allow analysis and prevent any further damage, the deploy­ment was halted so that engineers on the ground could evaluate the situation and plan what to do next. Despite the 80% deployment, the array was still able to generate nearly normal power levels.

The fourth EVA was slipped 24 hours to study options for repairing the tom array. It was decided to concentrate primarily on repairing the array on EVA 4 and defer any work on the SARJ to later in the program. The planned EVA 5 would be completed by the ISS-16 crew after the departure of Discovery.

The fourth EVA (November 3, 7h 19 min) was again completed by Parazynski and Wheelock. Before they began the EVA, the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) was moved from the Shuttle RMS to the station arm. Over the next 90 minutes, the two astronauts rode the arm to work at the tom array area. This distance was 165 feet down the Tmss and 90 feet up to the damaged area. Once there, Parazynski cut a snagged wire and installed homemade stabilizers to strengthen the array’s structure and stability where the damage had occurred. Ground controllers were then able to complete the deployment. Deploying at one half bay at a time, this process took 15 minutes to complete.

The four space walks amassed a total of 27 hours 34 minutes. Individually, Parazynski had logged 27 hours 14 minutes (four EVAs); Wheelock 20 hours 41 minutes (three EVAs); and Tani 6 hours 33 minutes on a single excursion.

On November 5, Discovery undocked from the station after 9 days 21 hours of joint activities, completing a nominal landing on November 7. This followed a rare southbound trajectory which took the orbiter over the central states of

continental America and which allowed a daylight landing at the Cape instead of the preplanned night landing.

Milestones

256th manned space flight 150th U. S. manned space flight 120th Shuttle mission 34th flight of Discovery 23rd Shuttle ISS mission

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the feature film Star Wars franchise, the

Luke Skywalker light saber was flown on Discovery

The first time female commanders would lead Shuttle (Melroy) and station

(Whitson) missions at the same time and meet in space

Use of OBSS during EVA 4 (November 3) was the first operational use of

OBSS to reach a work site on the ISS

Flight crew

FRICK, Stephen Nathaniel, 43, USN, NASA commander, second mission Previous mission: STS-110 (2002)

POINDEXTER, Alan Goodwin, 46, USN, NASA pilot MELVIN, Leland Deems, 43, civilian, NASA mission specialist 1 WALHEIM, Rex Joseph, 45, USAF, NASA mission specialist 2, second mission

Previous mission: STS-110 (2002)

SCHLEGEL, Hans Wilheim, 56, civihan (German), ESA mission specialist 3, second mission

Previous mission: STS-55/Spacelab D2 (1993)

LOVE, Stanley Glen, 42, civilian, NASA mission specialist 4

ISS resident crew members

EYHARTS, Leopold, 50, French Air Force, ESA (French) mission specialist 5 (up only); ISS-16 flight engineer 2, second mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM-27 (1998)

TANI, Daniel Michio, 46, civihan, NASA mission specialist 5 (down only), ISS-16 flight engineer 2, second mission Previous mission: STS-108 (2001)

Flight log

The 24th ISS assembly mission featured the delivery of the long-awaited European Science Laboratory called Columbus (named after the historic European explorer). The science payload for the European module would be managed by the

Columbus Control Center, located in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. This would also be the center responsible for coordinating and managing the research and for collecting the results data. On board the station, experiment hardware would be operated mainly by European crew representatives, though not exclusively, as there would not always be an ESA representative on board as part of the main resident crew.

The orbiter Atlantis arrived back at the Orbiter Processing Facility at KSC on July 4, 2007 (America’s 231st birthday) following a ferry flight from Dryden and arrival at the Cape the previous day. On November 3, 2007, Atlantis was moved from the OPF to the VAB for mating with the rest of the stack. It was then rolled out of the VAB on November 10, 2007 for the move to Pad 39A.

During December, the mission was twice delayed during the fueling of the ET due to false readings in the engine cutoff sensor systems. Tests subsequently revealed that the open circuits in the ET electrical feed through a connector were the most probable cause of the fault. One of many safety systems installed on the vehicle, this particular connector protected the SSME by initiating shutdown if fuel ran unexpectedly low. To resolve the fault, a modified connector (which had pins and sockets soldered together) was installed for the mission. As a result of these changes, the launch was rescheduled for February 7 and was achieved without further incident.

Docking with the ISS occurred on February 9. Earlier, the crew had completed the now customary backflip maneuver so that Atlantis could be photo – documented and laser-scanned from the ISS for analysis on the ground. The orbiter crew had previously used the RMS to scan the surfaces of Atlantis on February 8; this inspection by the resident station crew was an additional check into the integrity of the vehicle’s heat shield.

Following the docking, ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts officially joined the ISS-16 expedition, replacing NASA astronaut Dan Tani, who rejoined the Shuttle crew and ended his residency. Tani had spent 107 days aboard the station as a member of the resident crew. His stay on the station had been extended two months due to difficulties in getting the Shuttle off the launchpad.

Following closer inspection of the tile data, minor damage was discovered on a thermal blanket over the right OMS pod. Further inspections were made by the crew but the Mission Management Team eventually cleared the TPS for reentry. They also extended the mission an extra day to continue activation of the European Laboratory.

There were three EVAs conducted during the mission, totaling 22 hours 8 minutes. The first EVA had to be postponed a day due to a medical issue with Schlegel. It was later revealed that Love would replace the German astronaut on the first space walk.

That first EVA (February 11, 7h 58 min) by Love and Walheim mainly focused on installation of the Columbus Laboratory. The astronauts installed a grapple fixture on Columbia while in the payload bay and prepared electrical and data connections on the module. Inside the station, astronauts Melvin, Tani, and Eyharts used the robotic systems to grab Columbus, lift it out of the orbiter payload bay and relocate it over to the starboard side of Harmony (Node 2). The EVA continued with the crew beginning work on replacing a large nitrous tank, which is used for pressurizing the station’s ammonia cooling systems.

Schlegel was well enough to participate in the mission’s second EVA with Wheelock (February 13, 6h 45 min). The two astronauts replaced the nitrous tank and used the station’s RMS to move the spent tank back into the orbiter payload bay. Minor repairs were also undertaken on the debris shield on the Destiny lab and several get-ahead tasks completed in preparation for the third and final EVA.

The third EVA of the mission (February 15, 7h 25 min) was conducted by Walker and Love. Its first objective was to relocate one of two external experiment facilities (called SOLAR) to the Columbus module for installation. The EVA crew was guided by Poindexter, while Melvin used the station RMS for the transfer. The EVA crew then retrieved a stored, failed gyroscope and secured it in Atlantis’ payload bay for return to Earth. Next, they installed the second experiment facility, called the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF), on to Columbus. Their final task was to examine a damaged handrail on the exterior of the Quest airlock. The deterioration of the handrail was thought to be caused by years of repetitive glove abrasion. To check this, the astronauts rubbed it with a tool covered in EVA over-glove material to see if it left any new damage.

In total, Walheim logged 22 hours 8 minutes on three EYAs; Love amassed 15 hours 23 minutes on his two space walks; and Schlegel 6 hours 45 minutes on his single excursion.

All crew members worked throughout the docked period to activate the Columbus Laboratory, which included outfitting it with several experiment racks. Both the Shuttle and station crews spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, ESA Director Jean-Jacques Dordain, and former ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, now a member of the German space agency (DLR).

Prior to the departure of Atlantis, its orbital maneuvering propulsion system was used to reboost the station’s altitude by about 2.25 km (1.4 miles), to achieve a proper alignment of the station in advance of the planned arrival of Endeavour on STS-123 in March. This was the first time since 2002 that an orbiter had been used for a reboost maneuver. Hatches were closed for a final time on February 17 and, early the following morning, Atlantis undocked from the ISS after 8 days 16 hours 7 minutes of joint operations.

The landing, on February 20, 2008, happened to coincide with the 46th anniversary (1962) of John Glenn’s historic first U. S. manned orbital flight of three orbits (4h 55 min) aboard Friendship 7 (Mercury-Atlas 6).

Milestones

257th manned space flight 151st U. S. manned space flight 121st Shuttle flight 29th Atlantis flight 24th Shuttle ISS mission 12th Atlantis ISS mission

First EVA was the 100th devoted to the assembly of the ISS Whitson’s 48th birthday (February 9)

Melvin’s 44th birthday (February 15)

Flight crew

GORIE, Dominic Lee, 50, USN retired, NASA commander, fourth mission Previous missions: STS-91 (1988), STS-99 (2000), STS-108 (2001)

JOHNSON, Gregory Harold, 45, USAF, NASA pilot BEHNKEN, Robert Louis, 37, USAF, NASA mission specialist 1 FOREMAN, Michael James, 50, USN, NASA mission specialist 2 DOI, Takao, 53, civilian (Japanese), JAXA, mission specialist 3, second mission Previous mission: STS-87 (1997)

LINNEHAN, Richard Michael, 50, civilian, NASA mission specialist 4, fourth mission

Previous missions: STS-78 (1996), STS-90 (1998), STS-109 (2002)

ISS resident crew members

REISMAN, Garrett Erin, 40, civilian, NASA mission specialist 5 (up only),

ISS-16/17 flight engineer

EYHARTS, Leopold, 50, French Air Force, ESA (French) mission specialist 5 (down only), ISS-16 flight engineer, second mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM27/26 (1998)

Flight log

Following several years of delays, this mission saw the start of construction of the main Japanese element at the ISS. The Kibo (“Hope”) Module was too massive to

be launched in one go and would therefore be delivered over three Shuttle flights. This first mission carried the Equipment Logistics Module-Pressurized Section (ELM-PS) which would be attached temporarily to Harmony (Node 2). The more advanced Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, called Dextre, was also delivered on this flight. The new unit would supplement the Canadarm2 unit delivered in 2001.

Final processing for the mission began with the arrival of OV-105 (Endeavour) at the OPF on August 21, 2007. On February 11, 2008, the orbiter was transferred over to the VAB for final mating with the twin SRBs and ET. A week later, on February 18, the STS-123 stack was rolled to Pad 39A. Following a smooth countdown with no concerns over the weather, everything progressed as planned towards an on-time night launch. A low cloud bank meant that Endeavour disappeared from view from the ground soon after it began its journey to orbit.

A 5h inspection of the orbiter’s thermal protection system by the RMS was conducted by the crew the day before docking. The standard rendezvous pitch maneuver (backflipping the orbiter) for the resident ISS crew to inspect the underside was also completed successfully. Subsequent analysis of these data on the ground revealed no damage, allowing the Mission Management Team to clear the vehicle’s thermal protection system for reentry.

Docking with the station occurred on March 12, but the hatches were not opened until the early hours of the following day. Shortly after entering the station, Reisman exchanged places with outgoing ISS-16 resident flight engineer Eyharts (France), who had logged 33 days as a member of ISS-16.

The station’s Canadarm2 removed the Spacelab pallet containing the Dextre hardware from Endeavour on March 13, relocating and attaching it to the station’s Mobile Base System. The station arm was also used later to relocate Dextre to a position on the Destiny Laboratory, attaching it to one of the laboratory’s power and data grapple fixtures.

A record five EYAs were completed during the mission, totaling 33 hours 28 minutes. A trio of astronauts worked in pairs to complete the EVAs. To support this work, ISS-16 crew member Reisman also participated in the first EVA.

This first EVA (March 13, 7 h lmin) saw Linnehan and Reisman remove a cover from the centerline berthing camera system on the top of the Harmony Module. This system had provided a live video link as an additional visual asset in the docking of spacecraft and modules. They then removed the contamination covers from the Japanese module’s docking mechanism and disconnected other power and heater connections. Next, the two astronauts installed the “hands” of Dextre to its arms, and the Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU) tool change-out mechanism. Initial attempts to route power to Dextre during the EVA failed, but Canadian engineers were able to develop a bypass software patch to try at a later date.

The next EVA (March 15, 7 h 8 min) saw Linnehan and Mike Foreman attach the two arms to Dextre. This would allow the device to conduct installation and maintenance tasks controlled from inside the station. The astronauts also removed previously set up thermal covers from the robotic arm device.

During the third EVA (March 18, 6h 53 min), Linnehan and Behnken continued work on Dextre. They installed the unit’s toolholder assembly (which also serves as the “eyes” of the unit) and then the Spacelab logistics pallet was prepared for its return to Earth on Endeavour. The two astronauts next installed spare equipment for the station, as well as an external platform on the Quest airlock. This equipment included a spare yaw joint for the Canadarm2 and two spare direct current switching units. The crew also attempted to install the MISSE 6 experiment on the Columbus laboratory, but they were unable to engage the latching pins so this task was unavoidably deferred to a later EVA.

During EVA 4 (March 20, 6h 24 min), Behnken and Foreman replaced an electrical circuit box, known as the Remote Power Control Module, on the station’s truss structure. A major focus on this EVA was demonstration of a tile repair ablator dispenser (resembling a caulking gun), which was used to apply a sample material (Shuttle Tile Ablator-54, or STA-54) to samples of Shuttle heat shield tiles which had been deliberately damaged prior to the mission. The test samples were returned to Earth for more extensive testing to determine how STA-54 performed under microgravity and vacuum environments. Towards the end of the space walk, the astronauts removed a cover from Dextre and several launch locks that were still attached to the Harmony Node.

For the final EVA (March 22, 6h 2 min), Behnken and Foreman stowed the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) on the station’s truss. This was a temporary

move to make room in the payload bay of Discovery, which was currently being prepared to deliver the large Kibo science laboratory on the next mission (STS-124). This would take up most of the payload capacity of the orbiter. The OBSS would be returned on Discovery once the Japanese science laboratory had been delivered. After evaluating various methods of troubleshooting the latching pin problem, ground-based engineers advised Behnken of the best way to install MISSE-6 on the exterior of Columbus on this EVA. Meanwhile, Foreman inspected the SARJ to evaluate apparent damage, which had been revealed from photographs.

This was the first time a Shuttle flight had supported five EVAs and, across the series of space walks, three astronauts had logged three excursions each. Linnehan had accumulated 21 hours 2 minutes; Foreman 19 hours 34 minutes; and Behnken 19 hours 19 minutes. In his single excursion, Reisman logged 7 hours 1 minute.

Between the EVAs, Doi configured experiments and storage racks on the newly installed ELM-PS. Prior to the installation of Dextre, Reisman and Behnken had tested the joint bracket. Gorie examined minor condensation on a cooling line under the middeck flooring of the orbiter. This was later deemed not to impact orbiter operations, but was inspected periodically for the rest of the mission.

On March 19, between EVA 3 and EVA 4, Doi, Gorie, and station commander Peggy Whitson talked to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who congratulated the crew on their success in installing the first Kibo element. Later that day, the hatches were finally closed between Endeavour and the ISS, followed a few hours later by the orbiter undocking after a total of 11 days 20 hours 36 minutes of joint operations.

The first landing attempt was waived off due to unsuitable weather at KSC, but just one orbit later the weather cleared sufficiently to allow the landing there. Leopold Eyharts had logged 44 days on the space station during his 48-day mission.

Milestones

258th manned space flight 152nd US manned space flight 122nd Shuttle flight 21st flight of Endeavour 25th Shuttle ISS mission 8th Endeavour ISS mission

First mission to fully utilize the Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS)

First Shuttle mission to feature 5 EVAs

Set Shuttle record for longest stay at the ISS (11 da 20 h)

The “science” of space flight is often perceived by the general public to be a “new” skill, but is in fact one that is centuries old and comprises a melting pot of past experiences and developments. Today’s studies in, for example, materials and fluid physics, biochemistry, and medicine have evolved from the basic questions posed since ancient times: “How does this work and why?” The desire of human nature to “find out” and “experience” things, to address the unknown, has driven us from caves and “dark ages” to where we are today. True, not every develop­ment or advance can be called positive, but generally we have advanced in the understanding of our planet and our place in it and, in recent decades of course, how to leave the planet and explore beyond its boundaries.

In developing the sciences, there is often feedback and applications that can develop other fields. Such can be said for space exploration, though this is not always highlighted or promoted. This is a shame, as it offers an insight to those who do not understand the larger picture, who question the huge investments made in exploring away from Earth when there are still so many problems around us. Equally, advances in science, medicine, technology, sport, and even military operations can feed back to assist developments in space exploration. It is a two­way flow of knowledge.

As the science of space flight evolves, the division between automated and human space exploration will become less obvious as financial and other consid­erations push the requirements for such complex programs farther beyond national pride towards international cooperation. The farther we venture from Earth, so the need to sustain the crew by means of self-contained systems will increase, as will the reliance on automated systems. Robotic spacecraft will support and complement human endeavors and, in turn, human intervention will help sustain and maintain robotic operations.

Timing is crucial in order to escape from pending disaster, but so is design. On Apollo 1, the 100% oxygen environment, bare electrical wires, poor communica­tions, and a complicated hatch opening system all contributed to the loss of the crew on the pad during a demonstration test prior to launch. The first Soyuz seems to have been launched with inherent problems and the design of the para­chute deployment system was at fault. On Soyuz 11, the fact that the crew did not have separate pressure suits for launch and entry meant that they lost conscious­ness and died when the atmosphere escaped rapidly from the descending crew module with the landing following the preplanned automated sequence.

No matter the precautions, training, and practice, there is always the potential for the unexpected or “bad luck” to affect a mission. To date (2012), no crew has actually been lost in space, all crews having begun the recovery process, although three crews (Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11, and Columbia STS-107) have not survived it. Loss in space may well happen, but if and when it does, is the program mature enough to handle that type of tragedy? Are the politicians or public willing to accept that type of sacrifice? Only time will tell.

In reviewing 50 years of human space endeavor, what continues to shine through are the outstanding technology, skill, and professionalism that has safely carried most of the crews from launch to landing. With the development of new spacecraft, it will be interesting to see what escape options the crews have. When so-called private, commercial, and “tourist” flights arrive, as they surely will, how will the participants approach the fact that space flight is, and always will be, inherently dangerous?

The Shuttle program had evolved over the previous two decades and had gone through a multitude of designs and formats before the final configuration was decided upon in the early 1970s. The winged spacecraft, with a huge cargo bay and two-deck crew module, would be launched like a rocket, powered by two solid rocket boosters and three liquid-fueled main engines. These would be fed with fuel from a giant external tank attached to the SRBs, under the belly of the

Shuttle orbiter. The spent boosters jettisoned after two minutes and completed a parachute landing before being retrieved from the Atlantic and towed back to the Cape for refurbishment and reuse. After fueling the main engines up to orbital velocity, the external tank separated after 8 minutes and burnt up in the atmosphere.

Once in space, the orbiter’s own maneuvering engines could place it into its required orbit. Now, the Shuttle would become a spacecraft, flying a range of missions of up to two weeks, but nominally between 7-10 days. These missions would feature a changing configuration of payloads, spacecraft, and hardware in the huge payload bay, demonstrating the flexibility and variety the Shuttle could offer to customers and investigators. The payloads would include commercial satellite deployments and retrievals, the development of on-orbit satellite servicing, and a range of science missions with a variety of payloads, carried in European – developed Spacelab pressurized laboratory modules or on unpressurized pallets. There were also planetary probes and large observatory deployments planned and

a number of classified military missions manifested. At the end of the mission, the orbiter would reenter and complete an aerodynamic, unpowered, glider-style approach, landing on a runway near to its launch site to enable a quick turnaround for its next flight. That was the plan.

The composition of Shuttle crews would be a mix of pilots to fly and command the mission and mission specialists to handle payloads, the robotic arm, and space walks. There would also be occasional payload specialists, chosen for specific or one-off missions. The orbiter had the capability to support multiple space walks from an integral airlock using a wide range of support equipment, including (in the early years) a manned maneuvering unit for untethered opera­tions close to the orbiter (for safety reasons). Another innovation was the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS), or robotic arm, which could lift large items out of and back into the payload bay, or support EVA astronauts in their spacewalking tasks.

The original plan was to fly one mission approximately every two weeks from converted Apollo launchpads in Florida and then introduce a series of high – inclination (polar) military launches from the USAF complex at Vandenberg AFB in California. To meet this expected demand, a fleet of orbiters would be required. In 1977, the orbiter Enterprise (OV-101) had been flown on the back of a con­verted Boeing 747 (which would also serve as a carrier aircraft for the orbiter

when required) to evaluate the atmospheric qualities of the design on a series of approach and landing tests. These were supplemented by a series of ground tests and launchpad evaluations prior to the first manned launch. That historic launch occurred on April 12, 1981, the 20th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight. STS-1 was a stunning success and signaled the start of an impressive series of missions which would stretch across the next three decades. STS-1 was also the first U. S. manned space flight which had not been preceded by an unmanned space flight test prior to committing a crew to a new vehicle. This was a huge gamble, but it paid off.

Despite the success and proof of concept of the Space Transportation System over the next five years, the demand for commercial launches was not as great as expected and, consequently, the predicted reduction of launch and operating costs did not materialize. It was not all down to marketing the Shuttle as an all – encompassing national launch system. There were ongoing difficulties in preparing the vehicle for launch because the process was complex and not as routine as expected. This affected launch manifests and thus “selling” the Shuttle to fare­paying customers, who were looking for an affordable, dependable, and reliable system free from delays and mishaps. On top of this, the military never fully adopted the system for its own needs and the expected corporate commercializa­tion of space by flying groundbreaking research equipment in orbit never really evolved beyond preliminary experiments.

Nevertheless, four more Shuttle orbiters were built and delivered, all of which flew during the first half of the decade. Options for a fifth were agreed, with a full set of spares being fabricated in case of the loss of one of the vehicles and the need to build a replacement orbiter. Columbia (OV-102) flew the first four orbital flight tests (between 1981 and 1982) and the first operational mission on the fifth mission (also in 1982). She then flew the first Spacelab mission in 1983 and, after upgrades, the 24th mission in 1986. Former ground test vehicle Challenger (OV-099) was upgraded to replace Enterprise as an orbital vehicle, as it was found

to be too expensive to convert the latter vehicle after its ground tests. Between 1983 and 1985 Challenger completed nine missions, including three Spacelab mis­sions, a number of satellite deployments, the first tests of the MMU, and satellite servicing of Solar Max. During 1983, the first American female (Sally Ride) and ethnic minority (Guion Bluford) astronauts also flew their first missions on Challenger.

In 1984, a new orbiter, Discovery (OV-103), was commissioned, followed the next year by Atlantis (OV-104). In a little over a year, Discovery supported a number of satellite deployment missions, satellite servicing-related EVAs, and the first dedicated DoD classified military mission. Atlantis was introduced in the fall of 1985 and completed a DoD mission on its first flight. Its second supported EVAs devoted to space construction demonstrations. By the end of 1985 not only had NASA astronauts flown on the Shuttle, but also representatives of the U. S. military, scientific and commercial payload specialists, political observers, and a number of astronauts from other nations, including Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia.

From 1986, there were plans to fly even more foreign payloads and crew members, to deploy space probes and space telescopes in the second half of the decade, and begin the initial flights in support of the creation of a large space station, called Freedom, which had finally been authorized by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 after years of debate, redesign, and deliberation. Space Station Freedom (SSF) would be created and operated by international collaboration between the U. S., Europe, Canada, and Japan and would be assembled by a series of Space Shuttle missions over several years.