mat@hou5d.UUCP (10/19/83)
The October 10 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology carries the second in a series of articles about Columbia/STS 9/Spacelab 1. I am sure that this has all been covered before, but I thought I would review some points. First, the mission is scheduled initially for 10/28, with usable windows through 11/5. The mission is scheduled for eight days with an optional extension of up to two additional days. After a maximum length flight, Columbia would land with only two pounds of hydrogen remaining. The mission is endangered by a problem with the SRBs (see below). If it is scrubbed, Spacelab 1 will have to wait until February. Landing will be at Edwards rather than Kennedy. EAB was chosen over the KSC landing site because the orbiter will be more than 19,000 lb heavier than on any previous landing. Additionally, landing at KSC makes the presence of Heads-Up-Displays on the orbiter highly desireable. Columbia does not have HUDs. Columbia will carry six men. I believe that this is the greates number of men (people) ever sent up in a single launch. Can someone confirm or refute this? Spacelab is scheduled for round-the-clock operations with two shifts. Neither shift will be without an experienced spaceman. This will be the first mission scheduled for round the clock work -- either US or Soviet. There are 190 orbiter manuevers scheduled. Spacelab 1 will carry 38 experiments, both in the laboratory and outside it in the payload bay. There are seperate communication systems and ground crews for the mission and the scientific experiments, with the highest transmision of any US manned flight. There are about thirty different telemetry formats! The relatively new TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system will be essential in getting the data up and down. All in all, this is a pretty big flight. Unfortunately it is in jeopordy. Wear on the nozzle of one of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) has far exceeded expectations and design limits. There is very little protective material left on one side of the nozzle on one of the SRBs. Morton Thiokol is studying the problem, but the last report that I heard is not encouraging. The mission may have to await new SRBs and a new launch window in 2/84. Among the possibilities: The damage to the engine might be a fluke (unlikely) in which case STS 9 can fly with what is has now. It might be possible to fit a new (factory-fresh?) engine to STS 9 which is apparently already assembled. An aside: Anyone care to speculate how long it will be before we have a reuseable launch vehicle whose thrust will exceed the nearly 7,800,000 lb produced by the Saturn V ? Or how long it will be before we have a reusable launch vehicle that can retrieve a satellite from geosynchonous orbit? Mark Terribile Duke of deNet