Last manned flight 2011. Estimated first manned flight of commercial is 2018 or 2019. Failure delays not factored in. This delay in USA manned operations is not compatible with USA space preeminence!

NASA's Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation -- WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasas-webb-space-telescope-receives-first-mirror-installation-300184486.html


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Having this capability in a museum is unbelievable, we need bold leadership to regain WHAT WE HAD!!! As Krantz & Abbey have said, DON'T GO BACK TO CAPSULES---- which is what we are funding with the Commercial approach!

Project Apollo Archive’s albums | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums


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Oakwood oklahoma

NOVA | The Case to Save the Shuttle

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/case-save-shuttle.html


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The waste of a Resource this Great Country critically needs!

Once you read The Case to Save the Shuttle, & consider the nonsensical waste of taxpayer money, you should be upset enough to write your senators & Representatives!

Fwd: 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 15, 2015 at 8:07:11 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
November 14th, 2015

'Most Serious and Significant Work': 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38 (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

Atlantis roars into the night on 15 November 1990, 25 years ago, tomorrow, to begin the secretive mission of STS-38. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

A quarter-century ago, the world stood on the brink of outright conflict in the Middle East, following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Against this stormy backdrop of an impending war which would define a generation, as well as set the groundwork for later assaults on Iraq and the eventual overthrow of Saddam, in November 1990—25 years ago, next week—Atlantis rocketed into orbit on the seventh classified shuttle mission for the Department of Defense. To this day, the exact details of what the five-man STS-38 crew did during their five days in orbit remain enshrouded in secrecy. But as with so many aspects of these classified missions, real events and rumors have become strangely juxtaposed and there can be little doubt that it will be many more years before any hard facts about this mysterious flight see the light of day.

As outlined in a previous AmericaSpace series of articles, available here and here, STS-38 was originally targeted for launch in May 1990, but fell victim to a fleetwide series of hydrogen leaks which plagued Atlantis and Columbia. Its crew—Commander Dick Covey, Pilot Frank Culbertson, and Mission Specialists Charles "Sam" Gemar, Bob Springer, and Carl Meade—were announced by NASA on 11 May 1989 and entered a standard 12-month training regime. Springer had flown one previous mission, and Covey two, whilst their crewmates were all embarking on their first flights. For Covey, the assignment did not come as a complete surprise, for in early 1989 he had replaced Brewster Shaw as the Astronaut Office's lead representative on the DoD shuttle missions. In spite of its relatively benign appearance on paper, the assignment exposed Covey to the innermost details of the most secret missions ever undertaken by the shuttle fleet.

The STS-38 crew consisted of (from left) Pilot Frank Culbertson, Mission Specialists Carl Meade, Bob Springer, and Sam Gemar, and Commander Dick Covey. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

The insights to which Covey was privy were far higher than those of his fellow astronauts, who had been assigned to missions. "Each crew was read-into the particular DoD program that they were supporting," he told the NASA oral historian, "but there needed to be someone who was aware of what all of those missions were going to be doing and working that interface with the appropriate agencies within the DoD to make sure that the crew issues that may cross all of those were being taken care of." Covey's role was to manage the classified materials and the staff, whose involvement demanded a level of security clearance beyond "Top Secret." Many of his meetings were held in "special environments" and the importance of his role was underlined by the fact that even the astronauts for one DoD mission did not always know what their fellow astronauts, assigned to another DoD mission, might be working on. From STS-27 in December 1988 until his own flight, two years later, Covey was thus involved with some of the most tantalizing missions ever flown in the U.S. human spaceflight program.

In fact, Covey had been undecided after his second shuttle voyage—STS-26, the post-Challenger Return to Flight (RTF) mission, in September 1988—about whether to remain with NASA or return to his military career. "I was approached … about returning to an Air Force assignment as a Test Wing Commander over at Eglin Air Force Base," he told the NASA oral historian. "Going through the process of making my decision on whether I wanted to accept their offer to come back to a very good job or to stay and fly again, I had discussions with [then-Chief of the Astronaut Office] Dan Brandenstein about what's going to happen next. In that discussion with Dan is when he told me of his intent for me to fly STS-38." With this assignment, the DoD lead representative job made more sense. "Brewster left and went off and flew one of the DoD missions … and so I kind of rolled in behind him in doing that."

As their training progressed, and the shuttle manifest contorted its way through the first full year after the post-Challenger RTF, it became clear that STS-38 would launch no sooner than mid-summer, with Atlantis having touched down at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 4 March, to wrap up the STS-36 classified mission. Returned from the West Coast to Florida atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), the vehicle was rolled into the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 14 March and underwent a comparatively smooth effort to ready her for STS-38. On 8 June, Atlantis moved into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for stacking onto her bulbous External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs). Ten days later, she was transferred out to Pad 39A, tracking an opening launch attempt in mid-July.

Unfortunately, her sister ship, Columbia, had suffered a series of seemingly inscrutable hydrogen leaks from the 17-inch-diameter (43 cm) disconnect fitting. This hardware, located on the orbiter's belly, allowed liquid oxygen and hydrogen from the ET to enter the aft compartment and power the cluster of three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs). Shortly after the STS-38 stack reached the pad, NASA opted to perform a "tanking test" to verify that Atlantis was not affected by the same problem. Two methods of propellant-loading were followed: an initial "slow-fill" chilled down the pipework in her aft compartment and tank structure, in order to preclude the risk of boiling and the generation of excessive quantities of gas, followed by a higher-rate "fast-fill."

The historic "rollback" of the STS-38 stack (right) on 9 August 1990, which occurred as the STS-35 stack was returning to the pad. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

On 29 June, liquid hydrogen was pumped into Atlantis' ET and, to engineers' dismay, small concentrations of gas were detected in the vicinity of the disconnect hardware when the fueling process moved from the slow-fill into the fast-fill modes. According to NASA, the problem was "both temperature- and flow-rate-dependent," but conviction was expressed that the simultaneous leaks in Columbia and Atlantis were purely coincidental. A second tanking test was performed on 13 July, after which sealants were added to halt the leak, but a third test on 25 July revealed that it continued. Two weeks later, on 9 August—in one of the most enduring images ever taken during the 30-year shuttle program—the STS-38 stack was rolled back from Pad 39A to the VAB, passing the STS-35 stack, as Columbia made her way back out to the launch complex.

Back in the assembly building, Atlantis was destacked from her ET/SRBs and returned to the OPF on 15 August for attention to her hydrogen leakage issues. At length, she was back on Pad 39A by 12 October and promptly sailed through a tanking test, with NASA confidently scheduling STS-38 to fly no sooner than 9 November. Problems with her DoD primary payload enforced a slight delay until the 15th, with media being informed only that the launch would occur during a four-hour "window" from 6:30 through 10:30 p.m. EST. In spite of fears of high winds at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF)—to be used in the event of a Return to Launch Site (RTLS) abort—which initially placed estimates of acceptable weather at just 40 percent, conditions improved to 70-percent favorable and Atlantis speared into orbit at 6:48 p.m., turning night into day across the Space Coast.

"Liftoff of Atlantis," came the call from the Public Affairs Officer (PAO), "and the crew of a classified Department of Defense flight."

In keeping with protocol on these secretive missions, all communications between the orbiter and the ground during the early stages of ascent—including Dick Covey's "Roll Program" call at T+10 seconds and, later, acknowledgement of the engine-throttle-up call from Mission Control—were blacked-out. For Covey, launching in darkness presented few surprises; his first flight in August 1985 had begun on a cusp of daybreak and he was familiar with many of the sights and sounds and sensations involved. Most of Covey's family was in attendance on the night that STS-38 launched, with the exception of his eldest daughter, Sarah, who was on the Clear Lake High School volleyball team, back in Houston, which had just won the region. She was on her way to Austin, Texas, to play in the state championship series and was on the bus when Atlantis roared into orbit. Throughout the flight, Covey would receive uplinked teleprinter messages to keep him aware of the scores.

The STS-38 crew represented all four "core" military services, with Covey and Meade from the Air Force, Culbertson from the Navy, Springer from the Marine Corps and Gemar from the Army and all were graduates of a military test pilot school. (In fact, both Springer and Meade had actually applied to NASA for both the Pilot and Mission Specialist categories.) However, flying with three "rookies" posed its own challenges. "The good news is that we weren't flying a real long mission," Covey told the NASA oral historian, years later, "so they didn't have to worry about a whole lot of things. The bad news was that our most critical operations were all on the first day, right between launch and the time we went to bed; so these guys were going to be adapting to space for a first time, with all of the "gee-whiz" factors, and we had to do our most serious and significant work that first day in deploying a payload."

As Atlantis settled into orbit on the evening of 15 November 1990, only hours before Carl Meade's 40th birthday, the STS-38 crew was ready for four days of classified operations. By this stage, three months after Saddam Hussein's annexation of Kuwait, a growing international military presence was taking shape in the Persian Gulf. Two days earlier, on 13 November, a Titan IV booster had roared into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying a Defense Support Program (DSP) infrared early-warning satellite, and there was great speculation that the payload to be deployed by Atlantis' crew would be similarly directed toward intelligence-gathering over the Middle East. Little could the STS-38 crew have known, however, that their mission would end not at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., but—for the first time since April 1985—back at their launch site in Florida.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
November 15th, 2015

'The Thing That Was Really Unique': 25 Years Since the Secret Mission of STS-38 (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

As with her launch and the bulk of her on-orbit operations, Atlantis' landing was also shrouded in gloom. She became the first orbiter to return to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in more than 5.5 years when she touched down on 20 November 1990. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Twenty-five years ago, tonight, fire and thunder rattled the marshy landscape of Florida and an artificial sunrise—for just a few minutes—created a new dawn. At 6:48 p.m. EST on 15 November 1990, Atlantis roared into orbit on the seventh classified shuttle mission for the Department of Defense. Aboard the orbiter for the projected four-day flight were Commander Dick Covey, Pilot Frank Culbertson, and Mission Specialists Carl Meade, Bob Springer, and Charles "Sam" Gemar, and STS-38 would deliver a secretive payload into space to support a gradually escalating international military presence in the Middle East, following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. For Carl Meade, it was the eve of his 40th birthday, but for all five astronauts it was culmination of months of frustrating delays and the pinnacle of five lifetimes spent dreaming about aviation.

As described in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, Atlantis' launch was originally targeted for May 1990, but shifted to the mid-July timeframe as the busy shuttle manifest took shape in the first half of that year. However, a series of hydrogen leaks associated with the 17-inch-diameter (43 cm) disconnect hardware aboard her sister ship, Columbia, prompted fleetwide inspections and a similar problem was identified on Atlantis. As a consequence, STS-38 flew several months later than planned, carrying a payload which remains shrouded in mystery and rumor, even a quarter-century later.

Its original published designation was "Air Force Program-658" (AFP-658), and initial speculation centered on the possibility that Covey's crew deployed a Magnum Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) satellite—of similar design to the payload lofted by the astronauts of Shuttle Discovery on Mission 51C in January 1985—atop a Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster. However, many years after STS-38, on-orbit images of Atlantis' vertical stabilizer revealed no trace of the donut-shaped Airborne Support Equipment (ASE) "tilt-table," which was known to have accommodated all IUS-based cargoes in the payload bay. More recently, it became generally accepted that STS-38 deployed a member of the second-generation Satellite Data Systems (SDS-B) telecommunications relays, inserted into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). All told, it is believed that three SDS-Bs were launched by the fleet of reusable orbiters, on STS-28 in August 1989, aboard STS-38 and finally on the final Department of Defense shuttle mission, STS-53 in December 1992.

The STS-38 patch, emblazoned with the surnames of Atlantis' five crew members, highlighted the "seen" and "unseen" aspects of a Department of Defense mission. Image Credit: Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Almost a decade after Covey's mission, in the spring of 1998, imagery and videotapes of an SDS-B under construction were released by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), together with the identity of its prime contractor, Hughes. Physically, the satellite resembled the Syncom-4—also called "Leasat"—military communications satellites, operated by the U.S. Navy, which were deployed from the shuttle in a sideways, frisbee-like motion. The last Syncom-4 was carried aboard STS-32 in January 1990. It has been suggested that the SDS-Bs occupied a high-apogee and low-perigee orbit, ranging from as close as 300 miles (480 km) and as distant as 23,600 miles (38,000 km), and functioning at steeply inclinations which achieved apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. This enabled them to cover two-thirds of the globe, relay spy satellite data of the entire Soviet land mass, and cover the entire north polar region in support of U.S. Air Force communications. Such wide coverage was not possible to geostationary-orbiting satellites.

The SDS-B (possibly codenamed "Quasar") featured a pair of 14.7-foot-diameter (4.5-meter) dish antennas and a third, smaller dish for Ku-band downlink. It is also believed to have carried the Heritage (Radiant Agate) infrared early-warning system for ballistic missile detection capability. Overall, the satellite measured 13.1 feet (4 meters) long and 9.8 feet (3 meters) wide in its stowed configuration, with a launch mass estimated at somewhere in the range of 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) and 6,600 pounds (3,000 kg). Although it is unclear as to how they were deployed, some observers have assumed that they were "rolled" out of the payload bay, like a Frisbee, in a similar fashion to the Hughes-built Syncom-4 satellites. Others have noted that the solid-fueled rocket booster used for the SDS-B was an Orbus-21, physically identical to the motor later fitted to Intelsat 603 by spacewalking astronauts during STS-49 in May 1992. This has prompted alternative suggestions that the SDS-B was deployed "vertically" from a special cradle in the payload bay, in an orientation closer to that of Intelsat 603 than Syncom-4.

Irrespective of how SDS-B departed Atlantis, it is certain that the deployment was completed in the early hours of 16 November 1990, about seven hours into the STS-38 mission, after which the orbiter performed a separation burn to move to a safe distance in anticipation of the firing of the satellite's motor. However, according to observer Ted Molczan, writing in February 2011, the delta-V of Atlantis' burn was less than a tenth of what it should have been for a motor attached to a payload the size of an SDS-B. Moreover, he noted that the satellite itself lingered for some time in low-Earth orbit, rather than initiating its climb to operational altitude at the next available ascending node.

Then, in 1999, came the first mutterings that STS-38 might also have launched a second, more covert payload, known only as "Prowler." Molczan explained that Prowler was deployed 22 hours after the primary payload. The shuttle's crew then apparently performed an unusual maneuver, by lowering their orbit, rather than raising it. "It also happened to arrest the separation from the SDS," Molczan wrote, "and initiate a very gradual overtaking, perhaps to create the impression of a rough station-keeping maneuver [by Atlantis] to keep Soviet attention focused on the SDS." It would also appear that the SDS-B finally fired its Perigee Kick Motor (PKM) during a 16.5-hour period which overlapped the firing of Prowler's own motor. Detection by the Soviet-operated signals intelligence station near Havana might have been circumvented, Molczan continued, by timing the deployment of Prowler very carefully to when Atlantis passed beyond the Cuban radar horizon.

This partial image of Atlantis' payload bay, acquired during the STS-38 mission, reveals the conspicuous absence of the donut-shaped Airborne Support Equipment (ASE) "tilt-table". This removed the possibility that the STS-38 crew deployed a Magnum Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) satellite. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

As for Prowler itself, even today the fiction and the speculation greatly outweigh the facts and the evidence. Due to its brightness, a case has been advanced that it was a Hughes HS-376 spacecraft "bus"—very much like the cylindrical communications satellites launched on several shuttle missions in the early 1980s—with an attached Payload Assist Module (PAM-D) to boost it into geostationary orbit. Molczan suggested a total payload weight of around 9,900 pounds (4,500 kg), of which 2,860 pounds (1,300 kg) was the satellite itself and a further 4,600 pounds (2,100 kg) for the PAM-D, and argued that the ability of the shuttle to carry both it and the SDS-B was well within its performance envelope.

Clearly, STS-38 was a heavy mission, as highlighted by its orbital altitude, which did not venture much higher than about 155 miles (250 km). "You can read a lot into that," Dick Covey admitted, years later, to NASA's oral historian. "We didn't go very high because we couldn't go very high, which says we probably had a heavy payload. That was the thing that was really unique about the whole mission." Of course, for much of the first decade after the conjectured launch of Prowler, its existence was unacknowledged. The presence of two spent rocket motors—codenamed "1990-097C" and "1990-097D" in a catalog of orbital objects—could be explained simply as representing the expended first and second stages of an IUS booster, without raising suspicion.

As to Prowler's nature, labels such as "Geolocation Platform," "Optically Stealthy," and "Inspector" have been banded around over the years and the consensus seems to be that it was some kind of low-observable satellite, employed to rendezvous and secretly inspect other nations' satellites in geostationary orbit, 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth. At face value, the mission seemed impossible. Some observers doubted that it was even possible, in 1990, to conduct unmanned rendezvous in geostationary orbit, although such exercises had long since been routinely performed by the Soviets in low-Earth orbit between Progress cargo craft and the Salyut and Mir space stations. Others countered that geostationary altitudes provide a more benign environment for telerobotic operations and relative motion control and even wondered if Prowler might have performed radio frequency blocking; literally parking itself in front of a satellite's antenna path to block its signals. Still others have gone further: that Prowler did attempt such blocking, albeit experimentally, on U.S. communications satellites, and several analysts have argued that it could have positioned itself within a foot (30 cm) of a target.

Whatever the reality, it is certain that the curtain does not stand to be lifted on STS-38 for many more years to come. Yet this quiet mission had one more surprise in store. Its landing was scheduled for 19 November 1990, after four days in space, but was routinely postponed by 24 hours, due to unacceptable crosswinds at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which caused all three opportunities for that day to be scrubbed. Unfortunately, the weather in the Mojave Desert on the 20th showed no sign of improvement and, with on-board consumables until the 21st, NASA diverted Atlantis to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). It would mark the first shuttle landing in Florida since Mission 51D in April 1985, which touched down in a crosswind and suffered seized brakes and a burst tire.

It was with some surprise that Covey received a call from Entry Flight Director Lee Briscoe—bypassing the Capcom—and asked him if he was happy to divert to Florida. Although it had been more than five years since a shuttle had made landfall on the East Coast, the answer was a no-brainer for Covey. He had flown so many simulated approaches to Florida that he was more than happy to do so. The landing would occur in the late afternoon and fellow astronaut Mike Coats, flying the Gulfstream Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA) on weather reconnaissance, was responsible for determining whether conditions were optimum to receive Atlantis.

Atlantis concludes the shuttle program's seventh classified Department of Defense mission on 20 November 1990. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

"This is the fall of the year," explained Covey in his NASA oral history, "and one of the things that they do in Florida during the fall is burn the underbrush in their pine forests; a very controlled type of burn, just to get everything down. They were doing that over on the west side of the [Banana] River in Florida and the winds were predominantly from the north-east … so they were blowing that smoke out over central Florida, toward Orlando." Based upon this factor, Coats recommended that Covey should land on the south-eastern end of the SLF, on Runway 33. By the time Atlantis neared the time to fire her Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines for the irreversible de-orbit burn, the winds shifted. "The smoke was coming pretty much right across the southern half of the runway," Covey recalled, "and the northern half was clear."

Coats held off from advising a landing on the Runway 15 "end"—which would have required Covey to perform a left-hand maneuver during final approach—and the astronauts were advised that the smoky conditions might prove problematic. Added to this was the fact that it was near sunset on the Space Coast and the refractive effect caused the smoke to appear thicker. A little after 4:30 p.m. EST, as Atlantis came within minutes of touching down on Runway 33, the astronauts could see very little through their windows. That said, Covey and Culbertson had great confidence in the shuttle's guidance capabilities and as the vehicle rolled out on final approach, they spotted the Precision Approach Position Indicator (PAPI) lights on the runway perimeter, barely visible through the smoke. These gave Covey the visual reference that he needed, but as Atlantis descended lower, passing into the smoke, he could see nothing but the lights; the runway itself was invisible to him. At length, the smoke cleared and there, right ahead, lay the runway.

"Frank lowered the landing gear and we landed," he recounted, "and I think, technically, I get to log an instrument approach on that!" Touchdown came at 4:42 p.m. EST. Atlantis had flown through conditions of visibility which would ordinarily never have been sanctioned and for several years afterwards, Covey enjoyed reminding Coats of his recommendation, for the Runway 15 end of the SLF was totally clear of smoke by landing time! Two weeks later, an increasingly confident NASA announced its intent to resume "operational" shuttle landings in Florida and STS-43, launched in August 1991, became the first post-Challenger mission to be specifically directed to KSC as its primary End of Mission (EOM) site. By the close of the 30-year shuttle era in July 2011, no less than 78 landings—almost 60 percent of the total 133 successful shuttle touchdowns—had been completed in Florida. 

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: A real classic

http://keeptheshuttleflyingc.blogspot.com/2015/11/fwd-real-classic.html


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APPROPRIATE EO capability for the Greatest Nation on Earth!

• 
  
  Edit

One that has an equal or larger payload capability of the space shuttle.  

Can you believe we are pursuing an inferior approach that has us landing in Siberia ice or an ocean, or a desert!

This is totally INAPPROPRIATE  for this THE GREATEST NATION on the EARTH!

Below from Wikipedia .

Single-stage-to-orbit

Page issues

The VentureStar was a proposed SSTO spaceplane.

A single-stage-to-orbit (or SSTO) vehicle reaches orbit from the surface of a body without jettisoning hardware, expending only propellants and fluids. The term usually, but not exclusively, refers to reusable vehicles.^[1] No Earth-launched SSTO launch vehicles have ever been constructed. To date, orbital launches have been performed either by multi-stage fully or partially expendable rockets, or by the Space Shuttle, which was multi-stage and partially reusable.

Launch costs for low Earth orbit (LEO) range from $4500 to $8500 per pound of payload ($10,000–$19,000 / kg).^[2] Reusable SSTO vehicles offer the promise of reduced launch expenses by eliminating recurring costs associated with hardware replacement inherent in expendable launch systems. However, the nonrecurring costs associated with design, development, research and engineering (DDR&E) of reusable SSTO systems are much higher than expendable systems due to the substantial technical challenges of SSTO.^[3]

It is considered to be marginally possible to launch a single stage to orbit spacecraft from Earth. The principal complicating factors for SSTO from Earth are: high orbital velocity of over 7,400 metres per second (27,000 km/h; 17,000 mph); the need to overcome Earth's gravity, especially in the early stages of flight; and flight within Earth's atmosphere, which limits speed in the early stages of flight and influences engine performance. The marginality of SSTO can be seen in the launch of the space shuttle. The orbiter and main tank combination successfully orbits after booster separation from an altitude of 45 kilometres (28 mi) and a speed of 4,828 kilometres per hour (1,341 m/s; 3,000 mph). This is approximately 12% of the gravitational potential energy and just 3% of the kinetic energy needed for orbital velocity (4% of total energy required).

Notable single stage to orbit research spacecraft include Skylon, the DC-X, the Lockheed Martin X-33, and the Roton SSTO. However, despite showing some promise, none of them has come close to achieving orbit yet due to problems with finding the most efficient propulsion system.^[1]

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Shuttle clearly should be flying today!

We are slipping behind in space capabilities.  Rubio is correct on national security!

Below is from Wikipedia ,  & clearly illustrates why we developed our capabilities .

Now our capabilities are declining, Shuttle clearly should not be in a museum!

The United States was the dominant world power in the early 1950s. The U.S. government's U-2 spy-plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that it held the advantage in nuclear arms.^[6] The successful launch and orbit of Sputnik 1suggested that America's challenger had made a substantial leap forward in technology and posed a serious threat to American national security. This spurred the United States to making substantial federal investments in research and development, education, and national security.^[6]

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Last night's Republican debate focused on the economy, but there was another important topic I was glad we got to discuss: National security. After all, we can't even have an economy W/o national security ---- space capabilities are critical to ensuring our national security!!

Soon be ten years with no manned capability & COTS when it finally flys is INADEQUATE!

A Symbol: An in-space ballerina and hypersonic flying marvel, the Space Shuttle Orbiter is almost impossible for others to duplicate and continues to generate international admiration and respect for U.S. technical capabilities. Full Potential Not Yet Realized: The multi-functional Orbiter has performed “as designed” on all assignments including reentry and a key role in the International Space Station (ISS) assembly. Like any new manned system, as crews and engineers become more familiar (like a helicopter) performance “in the box” improves and extending-the-box opportunities are identified. So far the Orbiter has operated generally within the box.

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries on his spacesuit inside the U.S. Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will venture outside the station for a pair of spacewalks, the first of their careers, on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and Friday, Nov. 6.

Loss of shuttle & MMU tragic for USA !

Lost in space | Washington Examiner--- Very Uncertain future! Shuttle retirement TRAGIC for USA !

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2568052


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Keep the shuttle flying: It is up to you & friends to write your Representatives & Senators to get this capability back. Control of EO is critical to survival of the USA!

http://keeptheshuttleflyingc.blogspot.com/2015/10/it-is-up-to-you-friends-to-write-your.html


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Did you ever Just Stop & WONDER how our manned capability went to ZERO?

The only explanation is Lack of Leadership! The only way to make progress in fixing this is to email your reps & senators constantly.

America must maintain Absolute Preeminence in Space for the country to survive?
The shuttle capabilities can be regained with the Boeing X37C based on modification of the operational X37B.

Thanks for your efforts.

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TEN Years plus -- no manned capability!

We can blow money for everything under the Sun, but can't maintain a shuttle like capability! Take a look at what the USA wastes money on, it is just nuts. It is obvious the liberals ( republicans & dems) can not see the obvious need for an operational shuttle like capability!

The people better get this rectified before it is too late!

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Fwd: 30 Years Since Atlantis' Maiden Voyage

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 27, 2015 at 9:59:02 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: 30 Years Since Atlantis' Maiden Voyage

 

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
September 26th, 2015

'For Tasks That Might or Might Not Take Place': 30 Years Since Atlantis' Maiden Voyage (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

During the course of her 33-mission career, which began 30 years ago on 3 October 1985, Atlantis flew more Department of Defense assignments than any other orbiter, beginning with her maiden voyage, 51J. In keeping with DoD missions, the patch was both highly symbolic and patriotic. Image Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Thirty years ago, next week, Atlantis—which would go on to become the second most-flown orbiter in NASA's shuttle fleet, after Discovery—rocketed into orbit on her maiden voyage, Mission 51J. During that four-day mission, which began 3 October 1985, Atlantis and her five-man crew deployed a pair of classified Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)-III military spacecraft, atop a single Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster. Although the payload was widely known, the usual levels of secrecy imposed on Department of Defense shuttle missions remained in place, with Atlantis' exact launch time withheld until T-9 minutes and her exact landing date kept under wraps until 24 hours prior to touchdown. It was a strangely quiet start to a career which would see her conduct 33 missions in almost 26 years, totaling over 306 days in orbit, during which Atlantis deployed more than a dozen major satellite payloads, visited the International Space Station (ISS) 12 times and Russia's Mir seven times, supported more dedicated Department of Defense missions than any other orbiter and performed both the final servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the swansong flight of the shuttle program. Last week, veteran astronaut Dave Hilmers, one of Atlantis' first fliers, shared several memories of Mission 51J with AmericaSpace.

During those 33 missions, Atlantis ferried 148 discrete spacefarers from the United States, France, Russia, Canada and Germany safely into orbit, and back to Earth, as well as transporting the first-ever national astronauts from Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. That figure includes such luminaries as Jerry Ross, the sole human to have flown Atlantis as many as five times, as well as three-time "Atlanteans" Shannon Lucid, Marsha Ivins and Rex Walheim and 35 others who journeyed to and from orbit aboard the vehicle on two separate occasions during their careers. Of the Atlantis "two-timers", the list includes Frenchman Jean-Francois Clervoy, Costa Rica-born Franklin Chang-Diaz and the commander of the first shuttle-Mir docking mission, Robert "Hoot" Gibson.

Yet these figures only serve to describe those men and women who actually launched and landed on Atlantis. Several others rode into orbit aboard her, yet returned to terra firma within the confines of another craft; either a different member of the shuttle fleet or a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Their number includes cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin, together with Frenchman Leopold Eyharts and U.S. astronaut Clay Anderson. Conversely, Russia's Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennadi Strekalov and U.S. astronauts Suni Williams, Dan Tani and Nicole Stott only ever landed aboard Atlantis, having received their ticket into space aboard other vehicles. Carrying this peculiarity a step further, astronaut Dave Wolf is unique in that he launched twice, but only ever landed once, aboard Atlantis during his career—having returned from a long-duration Mir occupancy aboard a different shuttle—whilst Norm Thagard offers an opposing perspective of polarity: as the first American ever to launch aboard a Soyuz, he landed twice, but only ever launched once, on Atlantis.

Atlantis currently resides at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, the site from which she launched on 33 occasions between October 1985 and July 2011. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/AmericaSpace/awaltersphoto.com

Confused yet? You should be, for during Atlantis' glittering 33 missions, she rendezvoused and docked with the Mir orbital outpost on seven occasions between June 1995 and October 1997 and with the ISS on 12 occasions between May 2000 and the final flight of the shuttle program, STS-135 in July 2011. The consequence was that 29 other spacefarers— including the first ISS Commander, Bill Shepherd, the first European ISS Commander, Frank de Winne, and the first female ISS Commander, Peggy Whitson, together with numerous Mir  residents—were on hand to welcome her after docking in orbit. Interestingly, ten individuals happened upon Atlantis on more than one mission during their careers, including Germany's Thomas Reiter, who witnessed her arrival at both Mir on STS-74 in November 1995 and at the ISS on STS-115 in September 2006, and Russian cosmonaut Valeri Korzun, the only human to have boarded Atlantis three times in space, but never to have actually launched or landed aboard her. (Korzun was aboard Mir in September 1996 and January 1997, during Atlantis' STS-79 and STS-81 dockings, and aboard the ISS in October 2002, to welcome STS-112.) All told, 187 people from the United States, Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, France, Russia, Canada, Germany and Japan have boarded Atlantis for launch, landing or whilst in orbit at some point between October 1985 and July 2011.

Next week, on 3 October, as NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC) marks the 30th anniversary of Atlantis' maiden voyage, the center of attention will of course be upon the ship herself, together with the men and women who flew her, but specifically the five astronauts—all of whom, thankfully, are still with us—who participated in Mission 51J. And all five carved their own niches into the annals of human space exploration. Commander Karol "Bo" Bobko remains the only human to have flown aboard the maiden voyages of two orbiters, whereas Ron Grabe was the first shuttle pilot to fly twice aboard Atlantis. Of their crewmates, Dave Hilmers went on to participate in the first post-Challenger mission, STS-26, whilst Bob Stewart had earned himself a place in history by trialing the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) "jet backpack", earlier in his astronaut career. The final member of the 51J crew was Bill Pailes, the second (and last) Air Force Manned Spaceflight Engineer (MSE) to participate in a shuttle flight.

The "core" NASA crew of Bobko, Grabe, Hilmers and Stewart had originally been named on 17 November 1983, alongside fellow astronaut Mike Mullane, to a so-called "DoD Standby Crew", in support of future Department of Defense shuttle requirements. "Even those of us on the crew didn't know what that meant," Hilmers later explained in his 2013 memoir, Man on a Mission. "It didn't have an official flight number and it hadn't been assigned to any of the three orbiters that were in the fleet at the time." He added that, for several months, "the five of us trained for tasks that might or might not actually take place". Finally, on 15 February 1985, Bobko, Grabe, Hilmers and Stewart were assigned to 51J—tracking a No Earlier Than (NET) launch date of 26 September, 30 years ago, today—whilst Mullane moved onto the 62A crew, which was destined in the pre-Challenger era to become the first shuttle flight out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Pailes joined them as the fifth and final member of the 51J crew.

"There were kind of mixed feelings about that crew assignment," Hilmers told AmericaSpace of the DoD Standby Crew. "It was great to be named to a crew, but we didn't have a specific flight slot. I believe at one time we thought we were going to be assigned to the first shuttle flight out of Vandenberg, but that was kind of nebulous. So we did some generic training sessions together as a crew, but it was kind of bittersweet since we really didn't have any flight hardware to work on, or crew procedures to develop. More importantly, we didn't have a flight date." The firm assignment to 51J changed the situation markedly and Hilmers lucidly remembered the summons to the office of George W.S. Abbey, director of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate (FCOD). "It was exciting," he reflected. "We were called to Building 1 to see Mr. Abbey and everyone knew what that meant. It came to be a familiar process."

The crew of 51J are pictured at the end of their Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT), standing in front of an M-113 armored personnel carrier, which would be used in the event of an emergency evacuation from the launch pad. Karol 'Bo' Bobko (left) was joined on the flight by Ron Grabe, Dave Hilmers, Bob Stewart and Bill Pailes. Photo Credit: NASA

Remarkably, 51J suffered from only minimal slippage in its flight schedule, considering that it was the first outing for a new orbiter. Following a lengthy construction period—which began with the initial contract award to Rockwell International in January 1979—Atlantis achieved structural completion in April 1984 and, after an expansive series of tests, was transported overland from Rockwell's facility in Palmdale, Calif., to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in April 1985, and flown atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

"We certainly monitored the progress of Atlantis closely, but we didn't have a lot of direct involvement in the processing and testing," Hilmers told AmericaSpace. "We made one trip to Palmdale, Calif., to see Atlantis before it went to KSC and we went to the Cape for some final testing. However, we were too busy training to get too involved in the day-to-day processing. There were astronauts assigned to the Cape [the "Cape Crusaders"] who took care of that for the office."

Arriving at the Cape on 13 April 1985, Atlantis spent time in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) and in "storage" in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) until she was mated to her External Tank (ET) and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) and rolled to Pad 39A on 30 August. As described in last weekend's AmericaSpace history articles, she underwent the customary Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) of her three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs), thus clearing a key milestone in NASA's effort to get her into orbit.

"The five of us were fairly quiet guys, who didn't make a lot of noise, Bo included," Hilmers wrote of himself and his crewmates. "We didn't raise much of a ruckus over anything, and as a result, we all got along really well." With Bobko, Grabe and Pailes representing the Air Force, Hilmers the Marine Corps and Stewart—the first Purple Heart-holder ever to journey into space—having already secured recognition as America's inaugural Army astronaut, their military backgrounds gave them a common thread. This produced some mild inter-service rivalry, including one instance when Hilmers ribbed Stewart over the "toughness" of his Army basic training…"down at the Holiday Inn Express".

Speaking to AmericaSpace, Hilmers described the 51J crew as "kind of mild-mannered men", noting that Bobko and Stewart served as "team leaders", as they were the only veterans. He also noted that, although today they rarely have reunions, "we bump into each other now and then", adding that Ron Grabe's daughter was later a medical student at Baylor College of Medicine after Hilmers became a professor there. "She did some research with me," he recalled.

As their military thread kept the 51J crew unified, so too did their faith. "Of the four crews on which I served, 51J was probably the most uniformly religious," Hilmers wrote. "A group of us in the Astronaut Office routinely held Bible studies throughout my time with the agency, and on this flight in particular, we all seemed to be on the same basic page when it came to our faith." To Hilmers, it "meant the world" when the five of them shared a prayer on the morning of 3 October 1985, just before heading to the launch pad and Atlantis.

 

The author would like to thank Professor David Hilmers for his time and assistance in responding to questions for this article.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
September 27th, 2015

'A New Orbiter Joins the Shuttle Fleet': 30 Years Since Atlantis' Maiden Voyage (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

 

Not until the summer of 1998 were any images from this most "vanilla" of Department of Defense flights revealed … although the nature of the flight had long since trickled into the public domain. A pair of Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)-III satellites, mounted atop a Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage, are here raised to their deployment angle in Atlantis' payload bay. Photo Credit: NASA

Next week, on 3 October, NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (KSCVC) plans to celebrate 30 years since the maiden launch of perhaps its most prized exhibit—Atlantis, the second most-flown member of the space shuttle fleet, after Discovery—with a day of "meet and greets" and signing opportunities featuring many of her former astronauts, including Jerry Ross, the only human to have flown her on as many as five occasions. Throughout her 26-year operational career, Atlantis visited space 33 times, visited the International Space Station (ISS) 12 times, visited Russia's Mir orbital outpost seven times, and visited the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) once. Almost 200 men and women from nine sovereign nations voyaged aboard her, with the majority inhabiting her from launch through touchdown, but a handful journeyed uphill to orbit, downhill from orbit or met Atlantis midway as she joined them for a few days of docked space station operations. (In fact, one Russian cosmonaut, Valeri Korzun, met Atlantis as many as three times in orbit, yet never rode to or from orbit aboard her.) It might be supposed that such an illustrious career might have gotten off to an illustrious start, but Atlantis' first flight, Mission 51J in October 1985, was one of the quietest and most "vanilla" shuttle flights ever undertaken. Last week, veteran astronaut Dave Hilmers, one of Atlantis' first fliers, shared several memories of Mission 51J with AmericaSpace.

As noted in yesterday's AmericaSpace history article, the crew for Mission 51J changed significantly, following the initial NASA announcement of Commander Karol "Bo" Bobko, Pilot Ron Grabe, and Mission Specialists Bob Stewart, Mike Mullane, and Dave Hilmers as a "DoD Standby Crew" in November 1983. It had long been recognized that the shuttle would be utilized for a series of classified Department of Defense assignments, but in his 2013 memoir, Man on a Mission, Hilmers reflected that "even those of us on the crew didn't know what it meant." The Standby Crew had been appointed alongside several others, with the exception that the others had specific flight designations and payloads. For several months into 1984, Hilmers wrote, "the five of us trained for tasks that might or might not actually take place." At length, on 15 February 1985, Bobko, Grabe, Hilmers, and Stewart were formally assigned to 51J—tracking a No Earlier Than (NET) launch date of 26 September—whilst Mullane moved onto the 62A crew, which was destined in the pre-Challenger era to become the first shuttle flight out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. An Air Force Manned Spaceflight Engineer (MSE), named Bill Pailes, joined them as the fifth and final member of the crew.

Their primary mission objective was to deliver a pair of classified Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)-III military spacecraft, atop a single, Boeing-built Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster, toward a 22,300-mile-high (35,600-km) geostationary orbit. Ironically, despite the usual levels of secrecy imposed on Department of Defense flights remained in place—with Atlantis' exact launch time withheld until T-9 minutes and her exact landing date kept under wraps until 24 hours prior to the scheduled touchdown—the nature of the DSCS-III payload was well known in the open media, long before the shuttle departed Pad 39A at 11:15 a.m. EST on 3 October 1985. Details appeared in the pages of Aviation Week before Atlantis touched down, and, today, deployment images have long since been declassified and are firmly in the public domain, but only because the DSCS-IIIs were military communications satellites and not "deep black" reconnaissance or intelligence-gathering satellites. For that reason, more than two decades since the shuttle's last classified flight, most of the Department of Defense missions remain classified and rumor continues to abound over their nature.

Commander Karol "Bo" Bobko leads Bob Stewart, Dave Hilmers, Ron Grabe, and Bill Pailes out of the Operations & Checkout (O&C) Building on launch morning, 3 October 1985, bound for Pad 39A and Atlantis. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Mission 51J began with an upset wife. Management consultant Diane Bobko was particularly irritated as her husband prepared for his third voyage into space. Unlike his previous missions—STS-6, the maiden flight of Challenger, in April 1983 and Mission 51D, which supported the first contingency EVA of the shuttle era in April 1985—this one was classified and she knew that he could tell her very little about it.

"Bo," she said, one morning in September 1985, "you're not telling me exactly what day, you're going to land, but I think it's going to be pretty close to a day I have a program in Baltimore."

"Diane, it's the first flight of a new vehicle," her husband replied. "Probably the safest thing you can do is go ahead and schedule that right now." From his perspective, Bobko had been intimately familiar with the delays which struck Challenger, during the months preceding her maiden voyage, and anticipated that the inaugural voyage of Atlantis would also meet with significant delay. Ironically, it did not.

Command of this new flight posed something of a problem in the spring of 1985, particularly when Bobko's previous mission was canceled and he ended up leading his crew into orbit in April, under a different designation. The inevitable consequence was that Grabe, Hilmers, and Stewart were forced to train without him for a time. What really made 51J a pain was its classified nature, in which the astronauts had to conduct virtually their entire training in secret, filing misleading flight plans to training destinations … and then finding out through the pages of Aviation Week and Flight International that details of their supposedly "secret" payload had leaked and been exposed.

In fact, the twin DSCS-III satellites became something of an "open" secret and details were published as early as 7 October 1985, the very day that Atlantis touched down at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. A single IUS booster carried the $160 million satellites, stacked one atop the other, images of which were finally declassified in the summer of 1998. They lend credence to Bobko's claim that, for all its "secrecy," 51J was little more than a "vanilla" shuttle deployment flight.

The DSCS—nicknamed "the discus"—has long been an anchor for the Pentagon's global communications network, operating in geostationary orbit with half a dozen super-high-frequency transponders for secure voice and data transmissions and high-priority command and control links between officials and battlefield commanders. The Air Force later admitted that it had launched two DSCS-IIIs in 1985 and, according to space analyst Dwayne Day, "the only launch that year that fit was the Atlantis mission." Subsequent documents highlighted that the DSCS-III satellites had been deployed during a shuttle flight, but refused to reveal the name of that flight … even though it could be quite easily inferred. "Military secrecy can be bizarre at times," wrote Day, "like acknowledging that there is a sky, and that the sky can be blue, but never saying that the sky is blue!"

Atlantis roars into orbit on the first of her 33 missions. In all, she would fly five dedicated Department of Defense missions, more than any of her sisters. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Physically, the satellites were roughly cube-shaped, with a pair of articulated solar panels which produced 1,240 watts of electrical power. They measured 6.6 feet (2 meters) in height, spanned 37.7 feet (11.5 meters) across their expansive solar array "wings" and weighed 5,730 pounds (2,600 kg). Day considered it significant that 51J's payload was so readily revealed, but the natures of the other classified satellites launched between December 1988 and December 1992 have been kept under wraps to this very day. "If the suspected identities of the other classified shuttle flights are correct," he speculated in an article for the Space Review in January 2010, "then they are intelligence satellites. Considering the secrecy that remains about American intelligence satellites, it seems likely that these other flights will continue to remain secret for a long time to come."

Originally scheduled for No Earlier Than (NET) 26 September 1985, Atlantis' maiden launch met with relatively little delay, passing through a smooth processing flow in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) and Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and—as detailed in last weekend's AmericaSpace history articles—concluding a picture-perfect Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) of her three Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) on Pad 39A. With the launch date eventually settling on 3 October, it was revealed that Atlantis would fly during a four-hour period, extending from 10:20 a.m. through 2:20 p.m. EST, although the threat of rain showers offshore prompted Air Force meteorologists to predict a 60 percent likelihood of acceptable conditions at T-0.

As well as the vague launch time, which would only be known when the countdown clock passed out of its final hold at T-9 minutes, the length of 51J itself was unclear, with one media outlet suggesting a duration of five or six days. It subsequently became clear that the launch attempt endured a 22-minute delay to deal with a power controller in one of the SSMEs' liquid hydrogen prevalves, which had thrown up a faulty indication. At length, the assembled spectators at KSC became aware that launch was imminent when the blank face of the famous countdown clock suddenly came to life and started ticking at T-9 minutes.

It had been an exciting morning for the 51J crew, which included only two veterans (Bobko and Stewart) and three first-timers (Grabe, Hilmers, and Pailes). "It was one of the last flights before the Challenger accident and we launched wearing only some basic survival gear," Hilmers told AmericaSpace. "It was such a contrast to the remainder of my flights, in which we wore the elaborate and much more cumbersome orange suits."

Following the passage of T-9 minutes, the standard pre-flight procedures kicked in at this stage, accompanied by NASA coverage. At T-5 minutes, Ron Grabe activated the shuttle's Auxiliary Power Units (APUs). Shortly thereafter, the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB0 firing sequence and Range Safety Officer (RSO) circuit were armed and the five-man crew closed their helmet visors. Final helium purging of the SSMEs began and the Ground Launch Sequencer (GLS) determined that APU pressures were normal for launch. By T-3 minutes and 30 seconds, Atlantis was on internal power, as her elevons, speed brake, and rudder were maneuvered through a pre-programmed pattern and SSME gimbaling was completed. This was followed by the closure of the liquid oxygen valve to the External Tank (ET), retraction of the gaseous oxygen ("beanie") cap and the movement of the SSMEs to their start positions. From the pilot's seat on the right side of the cockpit, Grabe confirmed that Atlantis' Caution & Warning (C&W) memory was cleared, with no unexpected errors.

At T-2 minutes, the ET's liquid hydrogen valve was closed and all tanks had reached flight pressure within the following 45 seconds. With a minute to go, the sound suppression system of four giant "rainbirds," positioned at the base of Pad 39A, were armed, as were the hydrogen burn igniters, which would dissipate residual gases underneath the SSMEs, ahead of Main Engine Start.

"T-31 seconds," came the call, as control of the 51J countdown was transferred from GLS to the Autosequencer and the shuttle's on-board suite of General Purpose Computer (GPCs). "And we have the sequencer on the orbiter now controlling the final seconds to launch … 20 seconds and counting … the body flap and speed brake in launch position … T-12, 11, 10 … we have Go for Main Engine Start … "

The twin Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)-III satellites are clearly visible, atop their Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), during deployment operations. This and other images were finally declassified in the summer of 1998, some 13 years after Mission 51J. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

All at once the flurry of hydrogen burn igniters sparked beneath the dark SSME bells, which suddenly erupted into life with a sheer of translucent orange flame, which quickly gave way to a trio of dancing Mach diamonds. In the final seconds, Atlantis' computers commanded the engines up to full power.

" … we have Main Engine Start … four, three, two, one … ignition … and liftoff … Liftoff of Atlantis. A new orbiter joins the shuttle fleet and it has cleared the tower!"

Liftoff came at 11:15:30 a.m. EST. Unlike most other missions, where the Commander could be heard confirming the "Roll Program" maneuver, it was the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) who announced "Roll Program initiated; crew confirms roll maneuver," as Atlantis departed Pad 39A and embarked onto the proper heading for its 8.5-minute climb uphill. This was followed by several other clipped acknowledgements during first-stage first: "26 seconds, beginning throttle-back to 65 percent, pass through the area of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle," then subsequent confirmation that the SSMEs had returned to 104-percent rated performance, followed by "Crew given a Go at throttle-up" and "Commander Bobko acknowledging that Go at throttle-up." By this stage, Atlantis was already 13.8 miles (22.2 km) in altitude and 10.4 miles (16.7 km) downrange of the launch site, traveling in excess of 2,380 mph (3,830 km/h).

Nearing the two-minute mark into the flight, it was reported that "Crew confirms P/C less than 50," as the chamber pressures in the twin SRBs tailed off, ahead of their separation. "And we have solid rocket separation," came the call from PAO. "Guidance converging as programmed." Now far higher into the rarefied atmosphere, Atlantis and her five astronauts—of whom Grabe, Hilmers, and Pailes were making their first spaceflights—had attained an altitude of 32.2 miles (51.8 km) and a downrange distance of 39.1 miles (62.9 km) and were accelerating through 3,750 mph (6,000 km/h). A further six minutes under the impulse of her SSMEs and Atlantis reached orbit for the first time.

Atlantis alights on Runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on 7 October 1985. Mission 51J would be the second-shortest of her 33-flight career. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

For Hilmers, seated behind Grabe in the Mission Specialist 1 seat on Atlantis' flight deck, it was a moment he would never forget. "That first view of Earth from space was amazing," he told AmericaSpace. "I remember how brilliant the first sunrise seemed. A more humorous incident occurred when I forgot to add water to the dehydrated sausage when it was my turn to cook breakfast. I was permanently taken off duty as the chef!"

Yet there was still a degree of uncertainty about 51J. Flight International suggested (correctly) that if the rumors about the presence of DSCS-III satellites were accurate, then an IUS was the most likely booster, but suggested the possibility that other instruments might also be aboard, such as the Cryogenic Infrared Radiance Instrument for Shuttle (CIRRIS) and a laser retroreflector for Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars") research. The Air Force cleverly refused to confirm or deny any such rumors. After 97 hours and 44 minutes—making it the seventh-shortest shuttle flight of all time and the second-shortest flight of Atlantis' entire career, after STS-30—Mission 51J concluded with a perfect landing at Edwards at 10:00:08 a.m. PST (1:00:08 p.m. EST) on 7 October 1985.

As the fast-descending black-and-white speck of the orbiter appeared on the desolate Mojave horizon, then alighted on Runway 23, the NASA PAO picked up the commentary: "Touchdown Main Gear … Touchdown Nose Wheel … and the fourth orbiter in NASA's fleet, Atlantis, rolls out on landing, concluding Space Shuttle Mission 51J."

As it turned out, Diane Bobko was in California to meet her husband on the runway. Astonishingly, Atlantis had met with no significant delays, launched on time and landed on time. "So she was there to meet me in California," Bobko remembered, "gave me a hug and then she had to leave right away to … drive down to Los Angeles to catch the airplane to go to Baltimore." Later that evening, Bobko was startled out of his sleep by a telephone call. It was his wife. Surely, he thought, if a vehicle as complex as the shuttle could launch and land on time, on its maiden voyage, then her domestic flight would have been trouble-free.

"You're in Baltimore?" he asked.

"No," she replied, glumly. "I'm still in Dallas, trying to get to Baltimore!"

 

The author would like to thank Professor David Hilmers for his time and assistance in responding to questions for this article.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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