andy@pyrtech (Andy Mascsak) (10/03/88)
In recent articles it appears that everyone has written off the Vandenburg facility for shuttle launches. Having lived near there for 28 years, my understanding of the state of the facility is that it is fully operational and waiting for a shuttle to launch. It is also the only way I know of to get the suttle into a polar orbit. That type of orbit definitely has some scientific and military advantages. Andy
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/04/88)
In article <41680@pyramid.pyramid.com> andy@pyrtech.pyramid.com (Andy Mascsak) writes: >In recent articles it appears that everyone has written off the Vandenburg >facility for shuttle launches. > >Having lived near there for 28 years, my understanding of the state of the >facility is that it is fully operational and waiting for a shuttle... Sorry, no: it's been mothballed, and is unlikely to be revived. Congress finally told the USAF "either make some plans to use that facility, or put it in mothballs so you aren't spending millions to keep it ready for non- existent missions". The USAF, which has never been really keen on the shuttle, opted for mothballs. NASA is not happy but didn't have a lot of say in the matter. >It is also the only way I know of to get the suttle into a polar orbit. >That type of orbit definitely has some scientific and military advantages. Definitely. In fact, there are people even within the USAF who are unhappy about not having a polar-orbit shuttle capability. But they didn't have the money and clout needed to keep it going. Anything going into polar orbit in the foreseeable future is going to get there on an expendable. -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
dave@viper.Lynx.MN.Org (David Messer) (10/04/88)
In article <41680@pyramid.pyramid.com> andy@pyrtech.pyramid.com (Andy Mascsak) writes: >In recent articles it appears that everyone has written off the Vandenburg >facility for shuttle launches. This question came up in the post-landing press conference. The answer was that there is no plans for a flight from Vandenburg and, if it ever is used, it won't be until after 1994. -- If you can't convince | David Messer - (dave@Lynx.MN.Org) them, confuse them. | Lynx Data Systems -- Harry S Truman | | amdahl --!bungia!viper!dave | hpda / Copyright 1988 David Messer -- All Rights Reserved This work may be freely copied. Any restrictions on redistribution of this work are prohibited.
tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) (10/04/88)
In article <41680@pyramid.pyramid.com> andy@pyrtech.pyramid.com (Andy Mascsak) writes: >In recent articles it appears that everyone has written off the Vandenburg >facility for shuttle launches. Everyone, in this case, includes the Air Force, which announced that Vandenberg was mothballed for the indefinite future as of last year. >Having lived near there for 28 years, my understanding of the state of the >facility is that it is fully operational and waiting for a shuttle to >launch. My understanding is that (a) there were severe quality control problems which threatened to cost millions to fix and set the launch schedule way back even BEFORE the Challenger explosion; and (b) there were safety issues with launch ground tracks, weather conditions etc. which made launches all but unacceptable in light of the tightened post-Challenger criteria. >It is also the only way I know of to get the suttle into a polar orbit. >That type of orbit definitely has some scientific and military advantages. Welcome to the rediscovery of the Mixed Fleet. :-) Shuttles from KSC with a northerly roll (instead of the southerly roll Discovery took) can place smaller payloads in high inclination orbits, suitable for polarization via PAM or IUS or whatever, although the Orbiter does not go polar itself. If you have something larger to put in polar orbit directly, talk to the nice folks at Delta. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)
nixon@cisunx.UUCP (Bill 'Deus' Nixon) (10/04/88)
I thought I heard after Challenger, that Vandenburg was too risky a launch site. Didn't they have to modify the Shuttle Main engines in Discovery (or maybe Atlantis) to even attempt a launch from Vandenburgh? Also, didn't one of the early military/shuttle flights of Columbia get into a polar orbit? I remember on one flight that it was possible for people up here on the East Coast to "see" the shuttle as it flew over. Bill Nixon
kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu (10/05/88)
/* Written 10:57 am Oct 4, 1988 by nixon@cisunx.UUCP in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space.shuttle */ /* ---------- "Re: Vandenburg never to used?" ---------- */ >I thought I heard after Challenger, that Vandenburg was too risky a >launch site. Didn't they have to modify the Shuttle Main engines in >Discovery (or maybe Atlantis) to even attempt a launch from Vandenburgh? No, the risks were with the possibility of the polar ground track presenting a risk to populated areas, even from Vandenberg (Can't *anyone* spell Vandenberg?) The SSME's would be standard. >Also, didn't one of the early military/shuttle flights of Columbia get >into a polar orbit? I remember on one flight that it was possible for >people up here on the East Coast to "see" the shuttle as it flew over. High-inclination, but not polar. Ones that you might have seen at a fairly high latitude include Flight Date Orbiter Inclination Notes STS-1 4-12-81 Columbia 40.3 STS-2 11-12-81 Columbia 38.0 SIR-A STS-9 11-28-83 Columbia 57.0 SpaceLab 1 41-G 10-5-84 Challenger 57.0 (STS-13) 51-C 1-24-85 Discovery ** DoD (STS-15) 51-B 4-29-85 Challenger 57.0 SpaceLab 3 (STS-17) 51-F 7-29-85 Challenger 50.0 SpaceLab 2 (STS-19) 51-J 10-3-85 Atlantis ** DoD (STS-21) 61-A 10-30-85 Challenger 57.0 SpaceLab D-1 (STS-22) ** - Orbital elements were not released. Kevin Kenny UUCP: {uunet,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny Illini Space Development Society ARPA Internet or CSNet: kenny@CS.UIUC.EDU P.O. Box 2255, Station A Champaign, Illinois, 61820 Voice: (217) 333-6680
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/06/88)
In article <12984@cisunx.UUCP> nixon@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Bill 'Deus' Nixon) writes: >I thought I heard after Challenger, that Vandenburg was too risky a >launch site. Didn't they have to modify the Shuttle Main engines in >Discovery (or maybe Atlantis) to even attempt a launch from Vandenburgh? No, it could be done, but with rather limited payloads. The trouble was that some of the payloads that people (read: "USAF") wanted to launch on shuttles from Vandenberg were pretty heavy. That's why there was work done on various ways of improving performance. >Also, didn't one of the early military/shuttle flights of Columbia get >into a polar orbit? ... Not really. One of the Spacelab missions used an orbit with a rather higher inclination than usual, but it wasn't a polar orbit -- it was something like 60 degrees. -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (10/07/88)
In article <41680@pyramid.pyramid.com>, andy@pyrtech (Andy Mascsak) writes: > In recent articles it appears that everyone has written off the Vandenburg > facility for shuttle launches. > Having lived near there for 28 years, my understanding of the state of the > facility is that it is fully operational and waiting for a shuttle to > launch. > It is also the only way I know of to get the suttle into a polar orbit. > That type of orbit definitely has some scientific and military advantages. Nope, Space Launch Complex 6 (the shuttle pad) at VAFB is a complete write-off. There are so many flawed welds that the only way to rebuild the complex would be to tear it apart and start over again. I understand they are going to use it for one launch, however; they are going to send up the top 25 officers of the contractor repsonsible for this mess in a bathtub strapped to the top of a decomissioned Atlas! If you've lived near there for 28 years, you should *know* that it is spelled "Vandenberg" too. -- {hpda, uwmcsd1}!sp7040!obie!wes "How do you make the boat go when there's no wind?" -- Me --
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/09/88)
In article <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >No, the risks were with the possibility of the polar ground track >presenting a risk to populated areas, even from Vandenberg (Can't >*anyone* spell Vandenberg?) Say what? Care to elaborate? Downrange from Vandenberg there is *nothing* but lots and lots and lots of empty ocean, so empty that the choice of emergency landing sites is extremely limited. (There is basically *one* on each of the two interesting launch azimuths, each a tiny speck of an island.) The closest significant land mass downrange is Antarctica. Polar launches from Vandenberg are routine; it is *the* US polar-orbit launch site. Are you thinking, perhaps, of OMB's asinine idea of launching the shuttle northward into polar orbit from KSC? -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu (10/10/88)
/* Written 6:34 pm Oct 8, 1988 by henry@utzoo.uucp in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space.shuttle */ In article <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >No, the risks were with the possibility of the polar ground track >presenting a risk to populated areas, even from Vandenberg (Can't >*anyone* spell Vandenberg?) Say what? Care to elaborate? Downrange from Vandenberg there is *nothing* but lots and lots and lots of empty ocean, so empty that the choice of emergency landing sites is extremely limited. /* End of text from m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space.shuttle */ True for the retrograde sun-synchronous orbits that we use for most polar-orbiting satellites. (And I don't like Isla de Pascua as a contingency landing site any more than you do.) If you work out the azimuth for the anterograde sun-synchronous orbit that one of the earlier postings was describing, or for an anterograde Molniya orbit, there *is* a problem with the ground track coming too close to Pacific Coast cities. That's why, if you look at the elements for metsats, for instance, Meteor and NOAA, you'll see that ours all cluster around inclination 99 degrees, while the Soviet ones (which don't have the constraint) cluster around 82.5 degrees; the Soviets can use the cheaper orbit.
wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) (10/10/88)
/* Written 10:57 am Oct 4, 1988 by nixon@cisunx.UUCP in m.cs.uiuc.edu:sci.space.shuttle */ /* ---------- "Re: Vandenburg never to used?" ---------- */ > I thought I heard after Challenger, that Vandenburg was too risky a > launch site. Didn't they have to modify the Shuttle Main engines in > Discovery (or maybe Atlantis) to even attempt a launch from Vandenburgh? In article <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: | No, the risks were with the possibility of the polar ground track | presenting a risk to populated areas, even from Vandenberg (Can't | *anyone* spell Vandenberg?) The SSME's would be standard. Actually, a launch to the south from VAFB would not encounter any populated areas until the second orbit, which *should* be enough time to get the orbiter under control :-). The problem with SLC-6 at Vandenberg is that the welds in the launch complex itself are unsafe; it has nothing to do with geography. (And yes, I *can* spell Vandenberg; you kind of have to when you live in the Vandenberg Inn at Vandenberg Village for months at a time :-). -- {hpda, uwmcsd1}!sp7040!obie!wes "How do you make the boat go when there's no wind?" -- Me --
wats@scicom.alphacdc.com (Bruce Watson) (10/11/88)
In article <22000004@m.cs.uiuc.edu:, kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
:
: >Also, didn't one of the early military/shuttle flights of Columbia get
: >into a polar orbit? I remember on one flight that it was possible for
: >people up here on the East Coast to "see" the shuttle as it flew over.
:
: High-inclination, but not polar. Ones that you might have seen at a
: fairly high latitude include
:
: Flight Date Orbiter Inclination Notes
:
: STS-1 4-12-81 Columbia 40.3
: STS-2 11-12-81 Columbia 38.0 SIR-A
: STS-9 11-28-83 Columbia 57.0 SpaceLab 1
: 41-G 10-5-84 Challenger 57.0 (STS-13)
: 51-C 1-24-85 Discovery ** DoD (STS-15)
: 51-B 4-29-85 Challenger 57.0 SpaceLab 3 (STS-17)
: 51-F 7-29-85 Challenger 50.0 SpaceLab 2 (STS-19)
: 51-J 10-3-85 Atlantis ** DoD (STS-21)
: 61-A 10-30-85 Challenger 57.0 SpaceLab D-1 (STS-22)
:
: ** - Orbital elements were not released.
:
The Discovery STS-15 flight had an inclination of 28.4 degrees and the
Atlantis STS-22 was at 28.5. Source: TRW Space Log, Vol. 23, 1987.knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) (10/13/88)
In article <22000007@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kenny@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > Say what? Care to elaborate? Downrange from Vandenberg there is > *nothing* but lots and lots and lots of empty ocean, so empty that the > choice of emergency landing sites is extremely limited. > True for the retrograde sun-synchronous orbits that we use for most > polar-orbiting satellites. (And I don't like Isla de Pascua as a > contingency landing site any more than you do.) If you work out the There is a reasonably good novel "Shuttle Down" about a shuttle launch from Vandenberg that suffers a premature MECO (all 3) and has to land at Easter Island. Mostly concerns the technical and political (Chile) headaches of getting the unharmed bird back to the US. Such as improving the runway enough to land the special 747 and the cargo planes that bring in a mobile version of the Mating Facility or whatever we call the crane that lifts the orbiter onto that 747's back. Of course the author threw in a terrorist attack, possibly Soviet-inspired... The landing was hurried but easy, since the Easter Island/I de P tower just "happened" to be monitoring their radio (they get one scheduled flighter per week). Landing the orbiter at one of these abort sites (we have them in Spain and the now-slandered (?) Gambia, Africa for Canaveral launches) may be easier than getting the orbiter back. And if the payload is some sensitive DOD spystat, it can get even stickier. This too was touched on in the book.
knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) (10/14/88)
In article <221@obie.UUCP>, wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes) writes: > get the orbiter under control :-). The problem with SLC-6 at Vandenberg > is that the welds in the launch complex itself are unsafe; it has > nothing to do with geography. (And yes, I *can* spell Vandenberg; you You mean the gantry, pad, and/or crawler were built with shoddy workmanship? Sleazy subcontractor using scab labor? Can we sentence the responsible party to life in Morton Thiokol's salt mines? Seriously, can the welds be fixed, or is the weakness to all-pervasive? Enquiring minds wanna "no." -- Mike Knudsen Bell Labs(AT&T) att!ihlpl!knudsen "Lawyers are like handguns and nuclear bombs. Nobody likes them, but the other guy's got one, so I better get one too."
carson@tron.UUCP (Dana Carson) (10/14/88)
In article <7166@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes: >There is a reasonably good novel "Shuttle Down" about a shuttle >launch from Vandenberg that suffers a premature MECO (all 3) >and has to land at Easter Island. Mostly concerns the technical >and political (Chile) headaches of getting the unharmed bird >back to the US. Such as improving the runway enough to land the >some sensitive DOD spystat, it can get even stickier. This too was >touched on in the book. One of the people I work with called NASA about one of the things in the book. As Lee Correy stated they don't carry passports and at least then had no plans to start. So they could be considered ilegal aliens :-) -- Dana Carson Westinghouse Electronic Systems Group Mail Stop 1615 UUCP: ...!uunet!umbc3!tron!carson AT&T: (301) 765-3513 WIN: 285-3513
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/16/88)
In article <7166@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes: >There is a reasonably good novel "Shuttle Down" about a shuttle >launch from Vandenberg that suffers a premature MECO (all 3) >and has to land at Easter Island. Mostly concerns the technical >and political (Chile) headaches of getting the unharmed bird >back to the US... Harry Stine (who writes fiction as Lee Correy), who wrote "Shuttle Down", can probably take some credit for getting a lot more emergency-landing preparations made. Many of the problems in the book have been fixed; for example, things like runway upgrades have been done on Rapa Nui (aka Isla de Pascua, aka Easter Island). -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (10/21/88)
In article <375@tron.UUCP> carson@tron.UMD.EDU (Dana Carson) writes: >... As Lee Correy stated they don't carry passports and at least then >had no plans to start... I'm told that this has changed. -- The meek can have the Earth; | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu