Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Space History: Shuttle Launch Delayed … By Woodpeckers

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Fifteen years ago today — July 13, 1995 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-70. The mission had been scheduled to launch in June, but over Memorial Day weekend woodpeckers damaged the insulating foam on the external tank (shown below), which had to be repaired before the launch could proceed.


(STS-70 external tank, showing woodpecker damage. NASA image.)

Once the mission finally got underway, astronauts Terence T. Henricks, Kevin R. Kregel, Nancy Jane Currie, Donald A. Thomas, and Mary Ellen Weber deployed the seventh Tracking Data and Relay Satellite (TDRS-G). They also completed a number of experiments over the course of their 8 days in space.

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'Cornerstone' of the International Space Station

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Ten years ago today — July 12, 2000 — the Zvezda (“star”) service module was launched atop a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Zvezda module diagram. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The module docked with the nascent International Space Station (ISS) a few days later, and became “the early cornerstone” of the station.

If you want to know more about how the space station was built, this NASA page outlines the sequence of assembly for the ISS.

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Of X-Rays and Photons: Two Japanese Space Missions

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Five years ago today — July 10, 2005 — the Japanese Suzaku spacecraft launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan.

Also known as Astro-E2, Suzaku included U.S.-built X-ray telescopes from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Suzaku mission helped complete the picture we have of the universe in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Here’s the GSFC page about their part of the mission.

And yesterday another Japanese mission achieved the largest-ever acceleration of a spacecraft by impingement of photons on a solar sail.


(Image of the Ikaros solar sail, taken from the separation camera. From the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) June 28 press release.)

The Ikaros demonstrator had been launched on May 20th along with the Venus-bound Akatsuki probe, with the express purpose of testing solar sail technology. Here’s the Spaceflight Now report on its remarkable accomplishment.

The Japanese are planning a larger-scale solar sail mission for later this decade.

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So Much for That Idea

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Last month I posted my thoughts on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and particularly my opinion that a brute-force method should be used to stop the leak. In response to my friend David’s comment, I sent the idea in for evaluation and the other day I received the boilerplate response:

> Dear Gray Rinehart,
> Thank you so much for taking the time to think about and submit your proposed solution regarding the Horizon incident. Your submission has been reviewed for its technical merits. Unfortunately, the team has determined that your idea cannot be applied under the very challenging and specific operating conditions we face. All of us on the Horizon Support Team appreciate your thoughts and efforts.
>
> Sincerely yours,
> Horizon Support Team

In the publishing world, this is known as a “form rejection,” with the only personalization being that the system grabbed my name from the electronic form and popped it into the letter. (I know this because I’ve received lots of form rejections for my stories, and have sent out my share as well.)

What amuses me is the phrase “cannot be applied.” I’m aware of “the very challenging and specific operating conditions,” since in 1993 I directed a search-and-salvage operation in the Pacific Ocean for pieces of a failed Titan-IV rocket; based on that experience, I still think my idea is feasible. But because it would render the undersea wellhead unusable forever, it is most certainly undesirable to the powers that be.

I could be wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last. Nevertheless, I think the kid gloves should have come off a long time ago. By not making the situation better, the people in charge are definitely making it worse.

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Europe's First Deep Space Mission

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Twenty-five years ago today — July 2, 1985 — the European Space Agency launched the Giotto spacecraft on an Ariane-1 booster out of French Guiana.

Giotto was the ESA’s first deep space mission, launched to study Comet Halley (which I grew up calling Halley’s Comet, but somewhere along the line the naming convention seems to have changed).


(Image of Comet Halley from Giotto. ESA image from NASA’s National Space Science Data Center.)

Giotto rendezvoused with Comet Halley in March 1986 and passed within 600 km (c. 370 mi) of the comet’s nucleus. The spacecraft was not expected to survive its encounter, and cometary dust did damage it, but the probe and most of its instruments continued to function. As a result, the ESA extended the Giotto mission to rendezvous with comet Grigg-Skjellerup, making Giotto the first spacecraft to rendezvous with two comets.

More images from the Giotto mission are available on this ESA page.

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New National Space Policy

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(Cross-posted from the Space Warfare Forum.)


(Earthrise from lunar orbit. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

Yesterday the White House released the new National Space Policy of the U.S.A., available in as a PDF file at the noted link.

On a quick read-through, I didn’t find anything to which I could strongly object. Even the much-anticipated (by the aerospace industry) relaxation of export restrictions did not come across as the drastic change that had been hyped. I might disagree with the conciliatory tone, which seems almost an apology for rather than an affirmation of the country’s efforts to lead the way in space, but that seems to be the norm for the current Administration.

I don’t know that I agree with the focus on an asteroid mission and then a Mars mission (i.e., a Mars orbital mission) to the exclusion of a return to the Moon, since the Moon would seem to be the logical base of operations for such excursions. But maybe that’s the point: to reach those other objectives assumes first establishing a presence on the Moon. I hope that’s it.

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Space Destinations, On Film and In Orbit

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Sixty years ago today — June 27, 1950 — “Destination Moon” premiered in New York. Produced by George Pal and partly written by SF Grand Master Robert A. Heinlein, it was one of the first films to realistically depict a trip to the moon. This Wikipedia article goes into more detail about the movie and its influence.

Forty-five years later, on this date in 1995, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-71, to a destination no shuttle had ever visited before: the Russians’ Mir space station. U.S. astronauts Robert L. Gibson, Charles J. Precourt, Ellen S. Baker, Gregory J. Harbaugh, and Bonnie J. Dunbar traveled to Mir along with cosmonauts Anatoly Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin.


(STS-71 launch. NASA image.)

STS-71 was the 100th human spaceflight launched by the U.S., and represented the first time part of a shuttle crew changed out while in orbit: Solovyev and Budarin as the crew of Mir increment 19, while the Mir 18 crew — astronaut Norman E. Thagard and cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gannady Strekalov — boarded Atlantis for the ride back to Earth.

Now, if we could only get back to heading for destinations like the moon …

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Two Payloads, Two Orbits, Two Space Firsts

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Fifty years ago today — June 22, 1960 — a Thor rocket launched from Cape Canaveral and, for the first time ever, put two payloads into two different orbits. This launch set the standard for many multiple-launch missions to come. The rocket carried a Transit-2A navigation satellite and the Solrad-1 solar observation satellite.

Transit-2A was the newest in a series of navigation satellites put into orbit by the U.S. Navy. The Transit system proved that satellite navigation was possible, and set the stage for today’s Global Positioning System.

Solrad-1 was the other “first” scored by this launch.


(GRAB (Solrad-1) satellite model on display at the National Cryptologic Museum. Naval Research Laboratory image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Solrad-1 was also known as GRAB, the Galactic Radiation and Background satellite. Built by the Naval Research Laboratory, GRAB was the nation’s first reconnaissance satellite. As noted on this page, GRAB collected electronics intelligence on Soviet radar systems.

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First Titan Launches on Solid Rocket Motors: Titan-IIIC

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Forty-five years ago today — June 18, 1965 — the first Titan-IIIC (“three C”) launched from Cape Canaveral on a test flight.


(A 1978 Titan-IIIC launch. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The IIIC was the first Titan variant to use strap-on solid rocket motors for additional lift capacity. The Air Force flew a large number of SRM-augmented Titans through the years. This Aerospace Corporation article has a little of the Titan vehicle history.

The SRMs were built up in segments, with each full-size segment being ten feet in diameter and ten feet tall. The Titan-IIIC and IIID models used two five-segment SRMs each; the later Titan-34D used a pair of five-and-a-half-segment SRMs, while the Titan-IVA used two seven-segment SRMs. The last Titan model, the Titan-IVB, used the SRMU — solid rocket motor upgrade — which consisted of fewer, but larger, motor segments.

And why do I care about the SRM and SRMU details? Because I had the privilege of working on parts of the Titan program — primarily dealing with the solid rockets — during my assignments at Edwards (Titan-34D and Titan-IVA test firings, Titan-34D launches) and Vandenberg (Titan-IVA and -IVB launch processing facilities).

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