wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (08/28/85)
[Will somebody please fix the gateway between net.columbia and the ARPA Space Digest? The Digest hasn't had net.columbia-originated postings in it for months, it seems! Thanks!] The TV news stories on the Australian satellite said that, due to the jammed sunshield and the consequent overexposure to sunlight, that satellite was deployed a day ahead of time. My question is: if it could be launched when it was -- that is, there was an earlier launch window for the required orbit -- why was it planned to delay the extra day in the first place? I would think that it would be in everyone's best interests to get those satellites out of the cargo bay and into orbit ASAP. What, if anything, was changed by deploying this satellite "a day early" -- were some checkouts rushed, or other experiment start-ups delayed, or other undesireable effects incurred by this action? Re the launch through marginal weather -- we have had the long discussion on the net about the tiles getting damaged by rain, so I could see that that would be a good reason to not launch in the rain. (But would the shuttle be moving fast enough at early stages in the takeoff, when it would pass through the rain, that there would be ill effects? This is much slower than the speed when piggybacked on the 747 until it gains speed at higher altitudes, right?) But won't the system, to be a viable "space truck", eventually have to be operable during adverse weather conditions? I could see that it would have to function under the same degree of inclement weather that commercial aircraft operate under -- if the weather isn't bad enough to close the airport, the planes still take off and land, using instrument assistance. Would not the Shuttle have to function in similar conditions? You can't just indefinitely postpone supply runs for the Space Station, or ordnance delivery for an SDI system, the way you can put off commercial satellite launches and scientific experiments. Is it just that this is too early in the test & development cycle? Are there plans (weather cooperating, and at some future time) for takeoffs and landings in various degrees of bad weather, to test the systems' operation in such situations? It is not impossible that some future mission might require an emergency landing in the rain somewhere, after all, so I would think that it should be tested out. Comments welcomed! Regards, Will Martin UUCP/USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
alb@alice.UucP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (08/30/85)
There are no plans now to purposely launch or land shuttles in inclement weather. For one thing, we know that the tiles absorb water. If launched in a rainstorm, that water would be carried into orbit (1) making the craft heavier and placing it in a lower orbit than planned and (2) the water would freeze in space and then melt again during reentry; that wouldn't be good at all for the tiles. As for a practice bad weather landing, the proposal that someday it will become necessary is not true. There are backup landing sites all over the world. Plus, the shuttle can, in dire emergency, land at almost any international airport. So there are enough spots to land so that at least one will be dry.
les@kitc.UUCP (Les Johnson) (08/31/85)
In article <4241@alice.UUCP> alb@alice.UucP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) writes: >If launched in a rainstorm, that water would be carried >into orbit (1) making the craft heavier and placing it in a lower >orbit than planned and (2) the water would freeze in space and >then melt again during reentry; Wouldn't the ice boil off in the (relative) vacuum of space? Freeze dried tiles! :-) Les Johnson @ kitc!les
scott@ubvax.UUCP (Scott Scheiman) (09/04/85)
-- > There are no plans now to purposely launch or land shuttles in > inclement weather. For one thing, we know that the tiles absorb > water. If launched in a rainstorm, that water would be carried > into orbit.... Then what about water absorbed by the tiles while the shuttle is sitting on the ground? Or doesn't it rain in Florida :-? -- "Ribbit!" Scott Scheiman (Beam Me Up, Scotty!) Industrial Networking Inc. `/\/@\/@\/\ ..decvax!decwrl!sun!megatest!ubvax!scott 3990 Freedom Circle _\ \ - / /_ (408) 496-0969 Santa Clara, CA 95050
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (09/05/85)
There were doubts raised a while ago, in fact, about the choice of KSC as preferred landing site. The weather there is often poor. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry