Links, timeline, and photos below
The world's first and only reusable space vehicle returned to the stars this morning. Discovery became the first shuttle to enter space since the destruction of Columbia in February 2003.
From Reuters:
"We are looking forward impatiently to receiving the U.S. shuttle," Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, commander of what will be the 11th mission to the ISS, told the final pre-flight news conference Thursday, (April 14, 2005).
"Each new crew member always gives you plenty of emotions, but when you greet seven new ones, it means it will be a great party," Krikalev said from behind a hermetic glass partition.
A space shuttle flight begins with sheer spectacle. At the moment of controlled detonation--also known as liftoff--a shuttle is both creating and harnessing 6.5 million pounds of thrust. Its three main engines alone, diminutive in comparison to the raw power of the twin solid-rocket boosters, are themselves generating the output equivalent of 23 Hoover Dams.
Leaving the launch pad, a space shuttle is all rocket, its wings of little practical consequence except as impediments to airflow patterns. Reaching 100 mph as it clears the tower, the shuttle is a study in thunderous vibration, and this only builds in intensity for the first two minutes until the solid boosters tail off and drop away with a pyrotechnic clatter. But what the experience lacks in subtlety during liftoff is more than counterbalanced by the effortless grace with which a space shuttle uses all that energy to navigate once it has reached the seas of low Earth orbit. Once there, the deep-throated rumbling and bucking of ascent gives way to the more placid environment of life in orbit, answerable only to the laws of orbital mechanics and the flight rules of mission control.
Though shuttle launches have become routine and even boring since the first launch in 1981, I decided to check the web to see if anything still strikes me as interesting. In the process I rediscovered the wonder of spaceflight. Understanding what the shuttle does, and how, is as fascinating today as it was in 1981.
When I consider that much of the world lives with renaissance era technology and comforts, and we've been launching shuttles for more than 20 years, I feel a mix of awe, pride, and nationalism. The latter two are frowned upon, but you've got to admit that the U.S. system allows magnificent achievements -- and it's ours.
Anything but routine
The space transport system (STS), or Space Shuttle, was developed as part of a long term plan that began with high-speed aeronautical testing in the 1950s. It was the era of Chuck Yaeger and other test pilots who flew jet and rocket powered aircraft beyond the sound barrier, and to the edge of space -- men described by Tom Wolfe as having "The Right Stuff". The knowledge obtained from their efforts, along with rocketry developments, led to the first space missions. The shuttle is the culmination, and combination, of all previous USA aeronautical and space development.
From NASA's history pages:
Although it flew its maiden voyage only in 1981, NASA's shuttle program began many years earlier and predated Apollo. In the late 1950s, as human space flight began to be seriously considered and planned, most scientists and engineers projected that if space flight became a reality it would build upon logical building blocks.
First, a human would be lofted into space as a passenger in a capsule (project Mercury). Second, the passengers would acquire some control over the space vehicle (project Gemini). Third, a reusable space vehicle would be developed that would take humans into Earth orbit and return them. Next, a permanent Space Station would be constructed in a near-Earth orbit through the utilization of the reusable space vehicle. Finally, planetary and lunar flights would be launched from the Space Station using relatively low-thrust and reusable (and thus lower cost) space vehicles.
The perception of what became the shuttle as that reusable space vehicle associated with an orbiting space station held fast well into the vehicle's developmental stages.
"There never was a machine imagined like the shuttle before there was a shuttle," Faget said. "Embodied in that one machine you have a launch vehicle, you've got a spacecraft, and you've got a re-entry airplane--not a re-entry vehicle. Prior to the shuttle, when the Apollo came down, it just fell down."
"Most people can't appreciate that the shuttle, when it's in orbit up there, is going eight times faster than a bullet when it leaves the muzzle of a .30-06," said Pohl, who is director of engineering at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. "It's an airplane. But we launch it like a rocket. We kick it out of orbit half way around the world, dead stick, no engines. It flies like a rock, yet we set it down on the runway, and we do it time and time again."
"Nice and easy does it, John," astronaut Joe Allen radioed from mission control. "We're all riding with you. We'll see you about Mach 12." And then the crackling transmissions receded, the airwaves grew quiet, and many of the spectators on the lake bed talked about how this must be the radio blackout from re-entry. They were about to witness an event unique in history, and part of its allure was that no one knew what to expect next.
Another example of the shuttle's space- and plane-like characteristics can be found in the orbiter's abort conditions. Pilots are familiar with the "go around", which means to abort a landing by pulling up, powering up, and making a carefully constructed circle to bring the aircraft back in line with the runway for a second landing attempt.
In shuttle-speak, this type of abort is called Abort Once Around (AOA). Unlike going around the airstrip, the shuttle literally goes once around the world before trying re-entry again. An AOA has never been performed. With NASA's improved attention to safety, I don't expect Discovery to be the first to try the maneuver.
Today's launch
Shuttle Timeline: Notable dates and achievements
Late 1940s to 1972: NASA, Air Force, and various corporations research rocketry, aeronautics, and related technologies.
July 26, 1972: Rockwell's Space Transportation Systems Division is selected "as the industrial contractor for the design, development, test and evaluation of the orbiter. The contract called for fabrication and testing of two orbiters, a full-scale structural test article, and a main propulsion test article."
Sept. 17, 1976: The first shuttle, Enterprise, was rolled out of its hangar. A test craft that never entered space, Enterprise was mounted atop a 747 for aeronautical and other testing. It now belongs to the Smithsonian Institution.
Jan. 29, 1979: "NASA contracted with Rockwell to manufacture two additional orbiters, OV-103 and OV-104 (Discovery and Atlantis), convert the structural test article to space flight configuration (Challenger) and modify Columbia from its development configuration to that required for operational flights."
From NASA's Shuttle reference pages:
Columbia (OV-102), (was named) after a sailing frigate launched in 1836, one of the first Navy ships to circumnavigate the globe. Columbia also was the name of the Apollo 11 command module that carried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin on the first lunar landing mission, July 20, 1969. Columbia was delivered to Rockwell's Palmdale assembly facility for modifications on Jan. 30, 1984, and was returned to KSC on July 14, 1985, for return to flight.
Challenger (OV-099), also a Navy ship, which from 1872 to 1876 made a prolonged exploration of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It also was used in the Apollo program for the Apollo 17 lunar module. Challenger was delivered to DSC on July 5, 1982.
Discovery (OV-103), after two ships, the vessel in which Henry Hudson in 1610-11 attempted to search for a northwest passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and instead discovered Hudson Bay and the ship in which Capt. Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands and explored southern Alaska and western Canada. Discovery was delivered to KSC on Nov. 9, 1983.
Atlantis (OV-104), after a two-masted ketch operated for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from 1930 to 1966, which traveled more than half a million miles in ocean research. Atlantis was delivered to KSC on April 3, 1985.
Authorization to construct the fifth Space Shuttle orbiter as a replacement for Challenger was granted by Congress on August 1, 1987. Endeavour (OV-105) first arrived at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility May 7,1991, atop NASA's new Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (NASA 911).
Ronald Reagan, as quoted by the BBC:
"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."
Dec. 2, 1993: Mission STS-61 sent OV-105, the Endeavour, into space where the crew would set a record for back-to-back spacewalks. They also performed the first ever repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope. According to NASA, "every day the Hubble Space Telescope archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers all over the world?"
More on STS-61 here:
The Hubble -- the first telescope that allowed humans to see the edge of the universe -- is here.
Final Shuttle flight of 1993 was one of most challenging and complex manned missions ever attempted. During record five back-to-back space walks totaling 35 hours and 28 minutes, two teams of astronauts completed first servicing of Hubble Space Telescope (HST). In many instances, tasks completed sooner than expected and few contingencies that did arise handled smoothly.
Hubble rendezvous, grapple and berthing occurred on flight day three, with Nicollier using remote manipulator system arm to position 43-foot (13-meter) long Hubble upright in payload bay. Throughout mission, commands to Hubble issued from Space Telescope Operations Control Center (STOCC) at Goddard Space Flight Center. After each servicing task completed, STOCC controllers verified electrical interfaces between replacement hardware and telescope.
The accident was caused by a piece of foam insulation that had fallen off the external fuel tanks during liftoff. The foam created a hole where it struck the orbiter. On re-entry, heat and pressure penetrated the hole, causing the shuttle to break apart.
More on Columbia here and here. Photos taken by the astronauts are here.
Shuttle links
Gateway to astronaut photography
Johnson Space Center's digital image collection
NASA's Human Space Flight Center, with Shuttle and Space Station sections
NASA photo gallery
NASA shuttle and ISS galeries
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