BigSoccer IN SPACE!!! (The BigSoccer Space Exploration Thread)

Discussion in 'History' started by Macsen, Sep 19, 2012.

  1. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1376 Macsen, Apr 30, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
    [​IMG]

    Michael John Smith was born on April 30, 1945, in Beaufort, North Carolina. He graduated from Navy in 1967, then spent a year at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey where he got a master's in aeronautical engineering.

    After becoming a naval aviator and spending two years as an instructor, he did a tour in Vietnam in 1972, flying the A-6 Intruder from the carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Following Vietnam, he assisted in developing cruise missile guidance systems.

    Smith was selected in NASA Group 9 in 1980, and joined the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. He would hold several leadership roles in departments of the Astronaut Office involved in technical development. He was assigned as pilot for two missions: STS-51-L (TDRS-B deployment) and STS-61-I (Intelsat comsat deployment, likely Intelsat 514).

    Of course, he was killed on his first mission in the Challenger disaster. His voice was the last heard from the orbiter before the external tank exploded and the orbiter was destroyed. It was found that several of the switches on his side of the console were manually flipped from normal launch configuration, something that could not have been done by the ET explosion or the crew cabin's impact in the Atlantic. It is believed Smith flipped them while trying to restore power to the crew cabin.

    Smith was among those individually buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The municipal airport in Beaufort was eventually named after him.
     
    soccernutter and fatbastard repped this.
  2. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    The Hayabusa2 mission continues its year-long travel with the asteroid Ryugu.

    Unlike the original Hayabusa, which accidentally launched its MINERVA lander into solar orbit, it succeeded in landing MINERVA II on Ryugu. The lander was actually a pair of landers: HIBOU and OWL.

    Yes, they're both named "owl".

    The two landers have become the first practical "hopper" rovers to operate on an asteroid, using torque-generating wheels to bounce gently across the surface.

    The above picture came from HIBOU during one of its first hops.

    A third lander, a static lander named MASCOT created by the European Space Agency, left a series of experiments, including an infrared spectrometer that was also included on the InSight lander on Mars. It was battery-powered, and lasted 17 hours.

    A fourth lander, ROVER-2, is a uniquely-designed hopper lander created by a consortium of Japanese universities. It will be released this July.

    The mission included two landings by the probe itself to collect samples for return to Earth in 2020. The first landing collected so much material that the second landing is currently on hold, and will likely be canceled.

    Hayabusa2 is scheduled leave Ryugu in December 2019, and return its sample capsule to Earth a year later. Unlike the original, the bus probe for Hayabusa2 will remain in solar orbit, and a second target for an extended mission is currently being sought.

    It is estimated that, if the remainder of the mission goes to plan, Hayabusa2 will have around 30kg of xenon propellant for its ion engines once it completes the sample return. It was launched with 66kg of xenon.
     
    bigredfutbol and fatbastard repped this.
  3. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    19 years ago today, GOES-L was launched atop an Atlas IIA rocket from Pad 36A, Cape Canaveral.

    What became GOES 11 would have an abbreviated service life, through no fault of its own.

    GOES 11 was placed in storage at 104°W after on-orbit checkout, and would remain there for five years. This is because the satellite it was supposed to replace, GOES 10, remained viable for far longer than expected.

    It was finally put into service as GOES-WEST, in place of GOES 10, in 2006. By then, it was already a year past its design life. Still, it would remain active until it was replaced by GOES 15 in December 2011. It was then boosted into a graveyard orbit.
     
  4. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    52 years ago today, Lunar Orbiter 4 was launched atop an Atlas-Agena rocket from Pad 13, Cape Kennedy.

    The probe was placed in a roughly 1,700x3,800-mile polar orbit around the Moon. From the beginning, there were issues with the thermal shutter door for the probe, resulting in the ground crew having to get creative with it to get the best photography.

    Over 540 images were taken over two weeks, with the primary mission terminated early due to issues with the photographic film readout mechanism. Still, they were able to get all the film transmitted, and ultimately mapped 99% of the Moon's near side at resolutions varying from 58 to134 metres per pixel.

    After photography readout, the orbit was lowered for gravometric measurement of the Moon in preparation for Lunar Orbiter 5's mission. It de-orbited in October 1967.
     
  5. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    [​IMG]

    20 years ago today, Galileo made its fourth fly-by of Callisto. Its closest approach was 1,315 km.

    The fly-by marked the middle of the first extended mission for the probe, the Galileo Europa Mission. The fly-by trailed eight consecutive orbits of Jupiter where the probe flew by Europa. This fly-by was the first that would begin to reduce Galileo's perijove so it could begin riskier close fly-bys of Io.

    Callisto is shockingly unknown compared to the other Galilean satellites of Jupiter. It's definitely the red-headed stepchild of the group. Being the furthest from Jupiter, it's got a radiation background that is almost entirely clean; even Ganymede has an elevated radiation background compared to that at Earth.

    Other than that, Callisto is relatively unremarkable. Superficially, it looks a lot like our own Moon. But its composition is even icier than any of the other Galilean moons; at 1.87 g/cc, it's the least dense of the four. It is outside the tidal influences that affect Io, Europa, and (to a lesser extent) Ganymede, resulting in its interior lacking in liquid water.

    Callisto will finally get more detailed examination in the 2030s with the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), a NASA/ESA mission set to launch in 2022. The purpose of JUICE is to compare Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto, and evaluate their potential to host manned missions in the future.

    Last decade, NASA posited that Callisto was the best target for a future manned space mission to Jupiter. It's thought that the ice at Callisto could be harvested for fuel and oxidizer for missions further out into the solar system.
     
  6. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    54 years ago today, the final Titan IIIA rocket was launched from Pad 20, Cape Kennedy.

    The payload was the second Lincoln Experimental Satellite. The first launched three months earlier, but Transtage issues resulted in it not reaching its intended orbit.

    This launch succeeded entirely. All four planned Transtage firings were completed, lifting LES-2 into a roughly 2,800x15,000-km orbit.

    The probe itself carried technology being tested for comsats. The rocket tests were so successful, that the remaining intended Titan IIIA was moved to Pad 40 and converted into a Titan IIIC.
     
  7. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In addition to the JUICE mission I mentioned a few days ago, NASA is continuing to develop the Europa Clipper mission. It will make multiple fly-bys of Europa while in orbit around Jupiter, a mission designed to maximize data while minimizing instrument exposure to the radiation belt around Io's orbit.

    NASA is hoping to launch the Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System, and is currently conducting wind tunnel testing at Langley Research Center.

    Of course, SLS is currently having issues, both technical and political. Obviously, the technical issues are my only concern.

    The SLS launch would be a direct-to-Jupiter trajectory that would take less than three years. At six metric tons, it's the largest probe targeted for Jupiter by far. But it has a razor-thin launch window of just over three weeks in 2023.

    If SLS is not ready for 2023, there are two alternative trajectories which would take up to 6 years. But the current launch window for both trajectories runs from 2022 to 2025.

    The first is the classic VEEGA trajectory: a fly-by of Venus, and two fly-bys of Earth, before the final cruise to Jupiter. It could be launched on Delta IV Heavy or Falcon Heavy. Mission planners want to avoid this path, as it would require thermal protection for the Venus fly-by.

    The second would include a Star 48 Payload Assist Module, and would only require a single fly-by of Earth before going to Jupiter, much like Juno. This trajectory would require the Falcon Heavy.

    Since Juno has proved the ability to still use solar panels at the Jovian system, an RTG nuclear battery has been ruled out for the mission. The extra weight of solar panels, however, has resulted in the mission being unable to use the Atlas V or Vulcan rockets.

    A separate lander mission has been delayed for now; Europa Clipper will be used in part to evaluate the possibility of a lander mission in the future.
     
  8. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1383 Macsen, May 10, 2019
    Last edited: May 10, 2019
    [​IMG]

    Happy 56th birthday to former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak.

    Born in DC, she graduated from Navy in 1985. She then worked on signal jamming at NAS Pensacola. After earning a double master's in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Naval Postgraduate School in 1992, she became one of the first women selected to train as a Naval aviator in 1993, going to Navy Test Pilot School.

    She would test the F/A-18 Hornet, and then moved to Naval Air Systems Command. She was then selected to join NASA in 1996 with Group 16. She went in on the mission specialist track, and utilized her robotics experience in STS-121 in 2006, utilizing both the Canadarm on Discovery and Canadarm2 on the International Space Station to place repair equipment in the ISS truss structure.

    It was after that mission that Nowak's life went off the rails.

    She married Richard Nowak, who was a classmate at Navy, in 1988. He went to work as a contractor with NASA, and they had two children. But something happened.

    At some point, she met William Oeferlein, who became an astronaut in the group after her. He was also a Naval aviator (he flew in the Persian Gulf; I don't know if he was involved in Desert Storm). When Oeferlein went through a divorce, he and Nowak began a two-year-long affair. After STS-121, Oeferlein was attempting to break the affair, as he had fallen for an Air Force officer, Colleen Shipman.

    Shortly after Nowak separated with her husband, Oeferlein officially broke up with her. It was at this point that Nowak went off the deep end.

    One day, she loaded a bunch of weapons into her car, put on some adult diapers, and drove non-stop from Houston to Orlando to kidnap Shipman as she was arriving at Orlando International Airport.

    Shipman was able to hole up in her car in the parking garage until police arrived. Nowak tried to break into the car, but failed.

    That was on February 5, 2007. Nowak and Oeferlein were fired from NASA a month later. It resulted in NASA finally putting in writing a Code of Conduct for the Astronaut Corps.

    The resulting criminal case was incredibly drawn-out and dramatic. At one point, Nowak was accused of attempted first-degree murder, but that charge was later dropped. After 2 1/2 years, Nowak pled guilty to felony armed burglary of a car, for attempting to break into Shipman's car. She was sentenced to time served plus one year's probation.

    During the case, Nowak remained on active duty with the Navy, but was only given work on creating flight training curricula at NAS Corpus Christi. If it's of any consolation to her, the curricula she worked on is currently in wide circulation with the Navy.

    Nowak was finally reprimanded by the Navy once the criminal case was resolved. She was permitted to retire from the Navy in 2010, but her service was rated "other than honorable", and she was demoted from Captain to Commander. (That condition could've resulted from the conviction, or the divorce since it was due to adultery.) She was granted a seal on the criminal case in 2011.

    Oeferlein and Shipman later married, and had a child together. Oeferlein retired from the Navy in 2008 (it is unknown if he was reprimanded for the affair; their adultery regulations would not apply since he wasn't married at the time), and later moved to Alaska. He survived a plane crash in 2011.

    Nowak still lives in Texas, and currently works in the private sector. She is said to be doing well.

    A fictionalized account of the incident is slated for a 2019 theatrical release. Natalie Portman has been cast in the role inspired by Nowak.
     
    fatbastard repped this.
  9. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1384 Macsen, May 11, 2019
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
    [​IMG]

    10 years ago today, Atlantis was launched on STS-125 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center.

    The mission was the fourth service mission for the Hubble Space Telescope.

    It was a moment many thought would never come.

    The original plan for Hubble was for it to be retrieved on STS-144. That idea was canceled before the Columbia disaster. Even without the retrieval mission, two more service missions—STS-122 in April 2004, and STS-128 in August 2005—were planned.

    But afterward, NASA became averse to flying any mission that didn't involve visiting the International Space Station. They wanted to be able to keep the option to be able to rescue a crew if they deemed an orbiter unfit to return to Earth with a live crew.

    And by "they", I meant then-NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. No one else at NASA or the science community wanted at least the service missions to Hubble canceled.

    O'Keefe would resign at the end of 2004. His replacement, Michael Griffin, stated he was in favor of servicing Hubble one more time, but decided to wait for the Return to Flight before making a final decision.

    After STS-115, Griffin ordered STS-125 re-manifested to service HST.

    Two new instruments would be installed: Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) , and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS).

    WFC3 would replace Wide-Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).

    COS would replace COSTAR.

    With all the instruments of the Hubble Space Telescope now containing corrective optics, COSTAR wasn't needed anymore.

    Other instruments would be replaced as well. In fact, the mission was delayed from September 2008 due to the need to replace an additional internal component that failed at that time.

    The telescope was to get a new set of gyroscopes, a new set of batteries, a replacement of its insulation, and a soft-capture mechanism so a retriever would be sent to give the telescope a controlled de-orbit at some point in the future.

    Maybe.
     
  10. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    37 years ago today, Soyuz T-5 was launched atop a Soyuz-U rocket from Site 1/5, Baikonur Cosmodrome.

    It would bring the first expedition of Salyut 7, cosmonauts Anatoli Berezovoi and Valentin Lebedev. They would spend the next 3 1/2 months aboard the station.

    A week and a half after docking, they used Soyuz T-5's reaction control system to turn the station so its forward docking point was pointed toward Earth.
     
  11. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1386 Macsen, May 14, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2019
    10 years ago today was the first EVA for Hubble Space Telescope Service Mission 4. They switched their EMU spacesuits to internal power at 8:52am EDT, and left the airlock of Atlantis.

    Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel first inspected the instrument bay where WFPC2 was installed. They had found fine particulate matter on the outside, but determined it was not a serious issue.

    They removed WFPC2. The bolts were tighter than expected, but they were able to safely disconnect them and remove the instrument. They then installed the Wide Field Camera 3. Once it was installed, Goddard Spaceflight Center confirmed that WFC3 was operational.

    The next task was replacement of one of the command computers, the component whose failure led to the mission's last delay. The computer had a redundant unit controlling the telescope. With the replacement of the failed part, that redundancy was restored. The telescope would continue to operate on the backup unit, with the new unit as a spare.

    The final task of the first EVA was installation of the soft capture mechanism. They also replaced two of the four access door mechanisms to make the remaining EVAs easier.

    The first EVA ended at 4:12pm EDT. It lasted 7 hours, 20 minutes. Though the delays with the difficulties on removal of WFPC2 put the mission an hour behind schedule, they were able to make the time up once back on board.
     
    fatbastard repped this.
  12. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    EVA 2 began at 8:49am EDT. The first task for astronauts Michael Massimino and Michael Good was replacing Hubble's gyroscopes. The gyroscopes used to maintain the telescope's attitude are contained as pairs in three devices called Rate Sensing Units.

    This would result in a game of Musical Chairs.

    The RSU meant for Bay 2 installed properly. But the RSU intended for Bay 1 had to be put in Bay 3. And the one intended for Bay 3 couldn't fit any of them, so a spare unit brought up just in case had to be put in Bay 1.

    The spare RSU was a refurbished unit that was removed on STS-103 in 1999 during Servicing Mission 3A. It had two of the improvements in the brand-new models, and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci) was confident it would last the remainder of the telescope's usable life.

    They then replaced one of the two backup batteries used to power Hubble when it's not on Earth's daylight side.

    The EVA ended at 4:45pm EDT, for a duration of 7 hours, 56 minutes. The tasks took two hours longer than expected due to the gyroscope installation issues.
     
  13. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    EVA 3 began a little later, at 9:35am EDT. John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel resumed the work with the removal of COSTAR.

    That's a piece of equipment I've written about in detail.

    It was replaced by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a spectrograph designed to examine cosmic materials at ultraviolet wavelengths. The swap went without incident.

    The big deal for this EVA was the repair of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The component, installed on Service Mission 3B in 2002, suffered electrical problems in 2006 and 2007. It was not designed to be repaired on-orbit, but they were going to try anyway.

    For the repair, they replaced four circuit boards and a power supply. It was considered the most complex task of the entire mission, but it went ahead of schedule.

    ACS passed initial aliveness tests, and STSci was able to restore the main part of the component, the wide-field channel. They were not able to recover the high-resolution channel, suggesting that there were further issues deeper in the component.

    The EVA took 6 hours, 36 minutes. Two of the three channels of ACS, including the solar-blind channel, remain in operation to this day.
     
  14. song219

    song219 BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 5, 2004
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Vanuatu
    There is a US law passed in the past 8 years or so that prohibits any US cooperation with the Chinese space program. Any idea what was given as the reason for the law?
     
  15. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1390 Macsen, May 17, 2019
    Last edited: May 17, 2019
    It's a lot older than that. It's because of China's established issues with intellectual property, and the fact that the Chinese military still has their mitts on the Chinese space program.

    One of the issues with the Intelsat 708 disaster in 1996 was that China confiscated the remains of the satellite, which was manufactured by Space Systems Loral. Though the encryption technology is believed to have been destroyed in the explosion; the chips involved were mounted near the hydrazine tanks. Loral was fined $20 million for violating export control regulations.

    US intelligence found that China used technology confiscated from the Intelsat 708 disaster to improve their military technology. That judgment was made as early as 1997. US technology has been barred from the Chinese space program ever since.

    The Russian space program is nowhere near as militarized as China's anymore.
     
    roby, song219 and fatbastard repped this.
  16. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    EVA 4 began at 9:45am EDT, with Michael Massimino and Michael Good taking over again. The main task of the day was repair of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.

    It was added to Hubble in Service Mission 2 in 1997, but its power supply blew in 2004. STIS also was not designed to be repaired on-orbit.

    Though the repair was not as technically complex as ACS, it involved a lot of screws. Over 100 would have to be removed to get to the component's power supply.

    And they would need to remove a handhold to get to part of it. One of its screws stripped, resulting in them having to rip it off with brute force.

    After ripping off the handrail, Massimino had to spend time in the airlock to recharge his oxygen and replace a tool that had spent its battery. While they succeeded in repairing STIS, it took two hours longer than expected, delaying the planned replacement of insulation on the telescope.

    The EVA ended at 5:47pm EDT. At 8 hours, 2 minutes, it was the sixth spacewalk ever to exceed eight hours in duration.

    STIS passed aliveness tests, but a thermal issue threw the telescope into safe mode. It was resolved by the next EVA.
     
  17. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1392 Macsen, May 18, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
    The fifth EVA began at 8:20am EDT. There were not many components left to replace on the Hubble Space Telescope. John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel replaced the third Fine Guidance Sensor and the second backup battery.

    The remaining work was efficient enough that they were able to pencil back in replacement of the insulation blankets.

    At this point, the only things not new on the telescope were its hull, its mirror, and its solar panels.

    The fifth and final EVA took 7 hours, 2 minutes. The EVA would be the last out of the Space Shuttle's bare EVA airlock. Grunsfeld was left three minutes short of Jerry Ross's then-record for most cumulative EVA time. He is currently fourth among Americans, and 7th overall.

    Feustel would eventually overtake him in subsequent missions. He would be part of STS-134, and ISS Expedition 55/56. He is now second among Americans behind only Michael Lopez-Alegria, and third overall.
     
  18. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1393 Macsen, May 19, 2019
    Last edited: May 12, 2020
    On STS-125 flight day 9, the Hubble Space Telescope was released, ending Service Mission 4.

    Atlantis then received its heat shield inspection. There was no point doing this before the repairs to Hubble were done. The inspection was cleared.

    ********

    I've described the "standard" Shuttle rescue plan during Space Station construction, and the modified rescue plan for the final Space Shuttle flight, STS-135.

    But what about STS-125?

    The OMS system on the Space Shuttle orbiter did not have anywhere near enough fuel to exact significant changes of inclination. The ISS is at 51.6°, while the Hubble Space Telescope is at 28.5°.

    The plan that NASA came up with involved keeping Endeavour on stand-by for a rescue mission designated STS-400. It would carry four crewmembers, and four extra seats so they could return with 11.

    If Atlantis was determined to have sustained damage to its leading edges, Endeavour could be launched within three days. It would rendezvous with Atlantis on Flight Day 2, and their Canadarms would grapple each other to keep the two orbiters steady.

    The first EVA would involve John Grunsfeld, Andrew Feustel, and Megan McArthur running a tether between Atlantis and Endeavour. They would then bring two EMUs from Endeavour over to Atlantis, then return to Endeavour.

    Flight Day 3 would involve two EVAs. The second EVA of the rescue would have Grunsfeld in the Endeavour airlock, while Michael Massimino and Gregory Johnson transferred four of STS-125's pressure suits over to Endeavour. Massimino would return to Atlantis, while Johnson remained on Endeavour.

    For the last EVA, Michael Good and Scott Altman would help Massimino take the remaining pressure suits to Endeavour. To save space on Endeavour, three EMU's would be left on Atlantis. The only three EMU's brought home from the rescue would be the ones used by Massimino, Good, and Altman in the third rescue EVA.

    Upon completion of the EVAs, the Canadarms would unclasp. Atlantis would be remotely commanded to re-enter so that it ditched in the Pacific north of Hawaii. There would be no contingency to attempt to land it autonomously if it survived re-entry.

    After that, Endeavour would conduct its own heat shield inspection, and return on Flight Day 8.

    As part of the delays initially associated with equipment failures on Hubble, the rescue mission was briefly re-manifested to Discovery, and re-designated STS-401. An additional delay resulted in the mission returning to Endeavour as STS-400.

    The launch would've been conducted from Pad 39B. With the clearance of the heat shield inspection, Endeavour was cleared to prepare for STS-127, and Pad 39B was shut down to be prepared for use in Project Constellation.
     
  19. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If you ever wanted to see more super-cute mission animations from the European Space Agency, like the ones associated with the Rosetta mission, there is a series being produced for their BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The first installment was released not long before launch last October.

     
  20. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1395 Macsen, May 20, 2019
    Last edited: May 31, 2019
    [​IMG]

    Happy 68th birthday to former NASA astronaut Tom Akers.

    This guy had a quixotic journey to the astronaut program.

    After getting a master's in applied math from Missouri-Rolla in 1975, he went home to Eminence, Missouri, and became the principal of his alma mater high school. That would last all of four years.

    In 1979, when an Air Force recruiter left brochures at his school intended for the students, he decided to enlist himself.

    Already having a master's, this naturally made him an officer candidate, and he ultimately became a test pilot. He applied for NASA, and joined in 1987 in the mission specialist track.

    His first mission was STS-41, the deployment of Ulysses. His second was STS-49, Endeavour's maiden flight, the repair of Intelsat 603. Though he was on the mission for space station construction practice, he was brought out as a third EVA participant to assist in the capture of the comsat with Pierre Thuot and Rick Hieb.

    He would also take part in STS-61, the first service mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. He teamed with Kathy Thornton on two of the EVA's, replacing an RSU and the solar panels on EVA 2, and installing COSTAR in place of the High-Speed Photometer on EVA 4.

    (Of note is that his space station construction tasks on STS-49 were also with Thornton. It's probably why they were chosen to work on Hubble.)

    Akers' fourth and final mission was STS-79 in 1996. It was the first Shuttle docking with Mir following the station's completion with the arrival of the Priroda module, and exchanged tenant astronaut Shannon Lucid with John Blaha.

    Akers retired from NASA in 1997, but remained in the Air Force until 1999, retiring as a Colonel. He returned to teaching, becoming a professor at Missouri-Rolla. It was renamed the Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2008. He retired from teaching in 2010.

    He is married, and has two children.
     
  21. fatbastard

    fatbastard Member+

    Aug 1, 2003
    Lincoln (ish), Va
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You've done a great job recently reviewing Hubble Service Mission 4

    Hubble itself tweeted a link to some pictures today from "behind the scenes of Service Mission 4" to accompany your narrative

     
  22. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1397 Macsen, May 21, 2019
    Last edited: May 21, 2019
    [​IMG]

    57 years ago today, the Army Corps of Engineers entered a $2.6 million contract with Consolidated Steel to construct the erector and white room at Pad 19, Cape Canaveral AFS.

    Instead of the gantry built at Pads 5 and 14, and being planned at 34, 37, and 39, NASA agreed to integrate the white room for Project Gemini into the erector that would load the Titan II GLV onto its launch tower. The erector would also act as the rocket's service structure.

    (For those wondering, I have no idea if this Consolidated Steel has anything to do with the original Consolidated Steel from WWII, which became part of US Steel. This was an actual company based in Cocoa Beach at the time that obviously was part of the space boom on the Space Coast.)
     
  23. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    45 years ago today, Korolev's design bureau was reorganized once more, converting TsKBEM into Nauchno-Proizvodstvennoye Obyedineniye (Scientific Production Association) Energia.

    NPO Energia would remain the core of the Soviet space program. Explicit reasoning for the change is nebulous, but my guess would be that it put a measure of disconnect between the civilian aspects of the Soviet space program and the Soviet military. Especially since the Soyuz rocket was no longer being used for ICBMs.
     
  24. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #1399 Macsen, May 23, 2019
    Last edited: May 24, 2019
    The wake-up music for Flight Day 13 on STS-125 was "Faith of the Heart", the theme song of Star Trek: Enterprise.

    They were getting bored. Landing the previous day was postponed because of bad weather in Florida and California.

    They would be delayed again on this day. They had enough consumables to remain in orbit for another three days.

    To be honest, the only reason I even posted this was because of the wake-up music.

    ********

    [​IMG]

    34 years ago today, NASA announced the selection of Astronaut Group 11.

    Six pilots and seven mission specialists were chosen. The pilots were Michael Baker, Robert Cabana, Brian Duffy, Terence Hicks, Stephen Oswald, and Stephen Thorne. The mission specialists were Jay Apt, Charles Gemar, Linda Godwin, Rick Hieb, Tammy Jernigan, Carl Meade, and Pierre Thuot.

    (Don't ask me which is which; the photo above didn't come with a list of who's who.)

    These astronauts would make a gigantic impact on the Astronaut Corps in the 1990s. (see: the very recently mentioned Hieb and Thuot) All but one would fly at least three missions. Cabana and Godwin currently hold executive roles at NASA centers.

    All but two were born in the 1950s; Cabana and Apt were both born in 1949. Jernigan was the youngest, having just turned 26 when selected.

    The one exception to this rich experience was Stephen Thorne. He died in a stunt plane crash in 1986. He was the passenger in the plane.
     
    fatbastard repped this.
  25. Macsen

    Macsen Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 5, 2007
    Orlando
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Speaking of...

    (BTW, I was not planning this. I didn't even pay attention to the date when studying Group 11.)

    [​IMG]

    Stephen Douglas Thorne was born on February 11, 1953, in Frankfurt-am-main, West Germany.

    As a military brat, he was shuffled around American bases until he graduated from high school in Anderson, South Carolina. He graduated from Navy in 1975, and spent time flying F-4's from the carrier USS Ranger in the Western Pacific before going to Navy Test Pilot School. He would also later fly the A-7 and F-18.

    As stated above, he was selected to Group 11 in 1985 in the pilot track. But 33 years ago today, shortly before he was to complete training with NASA, Thorne was on an assignment to assist with stunt flying in Galveston County.

    I have found articles about the incident, but they don't say exactly what the flight was for. Only that he was the passenger, and that the small plane he was in went into an inverted tailspin and crashed. He and the pilot died on impact. He was 33.

    Thorne was survived by his wife; they had no children. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his grave marker notes him as an astronaut.
     

Share This Page