Ups and Downs for July

[GordonD]

26 JULY

 

1971 Apollo 15 launch

Crew: Dave Scott (CDR); Jim Irwin (LMP); Al Worden (CMP)

 

Fourth lunar landing

CSM: Endeavour; LM: Falcon

Apollo 15 was originally a somewhat simpler flight, similar to its three immediate predecessors: a so-called H-series mission. (Apollo 11 had been primarily an engineering test flight and was designated the G-misison.) However when financial cutbacks made it clear that two of the remaining Apollo missions would have to be cancelled (Apollo 20 had already been lost) NASA cut Apollos 15 and 19 from the schedule, leaving 16 to 18, which were renumbered. These were J-series flights, with a longer surface stay time and a heavier emphasis on the science. The most obvious difference was the inclusion of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, an electrically-powered 'Moon buggy' that would increase the distance the crew could reach from the landing site. Also, whereas on previous flights the astronauts had collected rock samples more or less at random, from Apollo 15 on they were given extensive training in geology so that they could identify what they were picking up and choose the most appropriate items. Lift-off took place at the very start of the launch window: had this been delayed, and again the following day, the mission would have to be postponed for a month. However all went well, though the second stage engines fired while the discarded S-IC was still relatively close: this could have been disastrous if the J-2 exhaust had been deflected back into the engines. Retro-rockets on the first stage had been reduced from eight to four, meaning its deceleration was less than in the past. However no harm was done (other than the loss of the telemetry package in the first stage) and the spacecraft reached orbit safely.

 

 

1975 Soyuz 18 landing

Crew: Pyotr Klimuk (CDR); Vitali Sevastyanov (FE)

Landing site:  56 km E of Arkalyk

 

This had been Salyut 4 Expedition 2. The mission had been delayed because of the in-flight abort of the original Soyuz 18, meaning that it was still in progress during the Apollo-Soyuz link-up. This had led to concern in NASA over the Soviets' ability to handle two completely separate missions at the same time, but ultimately the Salyut flight had no effect on ASTP. Flight time was 62d 23h 20m and 993 orbits, still short of the Skylab 4 record: the Soviets were still taking things slowly at this stage: the days of rushing ahead for propaganda purposes were almost gone.

 

 

2005 STS-114 launch

Crew: Eileen Collins (CDR); James Kelly (P); Soichi Noguchi [Japan], Stephen Robinson, Andrew Thomas, Wendy Lawrence, Charles Camarda (MS)

 

114th Shuttle mission; 31st flight of Discovery

This was the first US flight after the Columbia accident, delivering supplies to the ISS though the decision had been taken that crew rotations would be left to Soyuz missions. Following orbit insertion analysis of launch footage revealed that some small chunks of foam had broken free of the External Tank - the very thing that had doomed Columbia. Although the pieces were too light to do any damage, NASA again suspended flight operations to investigate. The crew joked that they hoped this would not take place until after they had returned to Earth! However, it would be a year before the next Shuttle mission. Docking with the ISS took place as scheduled on 28 July, following the first instance of what would become standard: the Orbiter performed a slow back-flip to enable the station crew to photograph its underside and inspect the tiles for damage. Three EVAs were conducted during the mission, all by Noguchi and Robinson:

1. 30 July, 6h 50m: Testing tile repair techniques and installation of an External Stowage Platform Attachment Device to the station. During this EVA the outer hatch of the ISS's Quest Airlock was opened so it could act as an emergency access point for the spacewalkers. It would remain open during all three EVAs.
2. 1 August, 7h 14m: Replacement of one of the station's gyroscopes
3. 3 August, 6h 1m: Analysis of the Orbiter underside had revealed that in two places 'gap fillers' between adjacent tiles had become dislodged and were protruding above the surface. These fillers were not required during re-entry and could be dispensed with. Plans were drawn up for Robinson to cut them back flush to the tiles if they could not be removed, even with a special tool, but in the event he was able to pull them out easily with his fingers.

Total EVA time for the two men was 20h 5m.

[GordonD]

27 JULY

 

1992 Soyuz TM-15 launch

Crew: Anatoli Solovyov (CDR); Sergei Avdeyev (FE); Michel Tognini [France] (RC)

 

Mir Expedition 12. Docking with the station was achieved on 29 July and the cosmonauts began joint operations with the Expedition 11 crew, who were due to return to Earth in around two weeks' time along with Tognini. On 14 August Progress M-14 arrived, delivering a 700kg VDU thruster unit which was to be installed at the end of the Sofora girder mounted on the Kvant module. This took three EVAs, with a fourth following soon afterwards:

1. 3 September, 3h 56m: Initial preparations for the installation and fitting of a truss to hold the Sofora girder in a folded position
2. 7 September, 5h 8m: The girder was folded back on a hinge to make it easier to reach the top and a power cable was connected. Communications between the cosmonauts and Earth was restricted due to industrial action at the ground station in the Ukraine.
3. 11 September, 5h 44m: The VDU thruster was attached to the end of the girder, which was then straightened back to the vertical position. It had been expected that the installation would take four EVAs but the cosmonauts completed the job in just three.
4. 15 September, 3h 33m: With the thruster in place the cosmonauts were free to concentrate on their secondary task: transferring the Kurs rendezvous antenna to a new position on the Kristall module, ready for the arrival of Soyuz TM-16. This was a test of the new androgynous docking system that would be used by the Space Shuttle when joint flights began.

Total EVA time for both men was 18h 21m.

[GordonD]

28 JULY

 

1959 Mercury Beach Abort 4

 

The second test of the production Launch Escape System used a spacecraft fitted with instruments to measure vibration and sound pressure level when the escape rocket was firing. All test objectives were met, and the flight was a complete success.

 

 

 

1964 Ranger 7 launch

 

After a string of failures NASA finally managed to acquire close-up photographs of the lunar surface. During the last seventeen minutes of flight, more than 4,300 pictures were sent back before the probe crashed on the lunar surface between the Sea of Clouds and the Ocean of Storms.

 

 

 

1973 Skylab 3 launch

Crew: Al Bean (CDR); Owen Garriott (SPT); Jack Lousma (CMP)

 

Despite the flight number, this was Expedition 2, as depicted on the mission patch. Docking with the lab was achieved some eight hours into the flight though problems developed with the attitude control system during the approach and a leak was detected. Consideration was given to a rescue flight, in which a modified CSM that could carry five astronauts would be launched to bring the crew home. However it was determined that the problem did not put the astronauts in any danger and the rescue flight was not required. Three EVAs were carried out:

1. 6 August (Garriott and Lousma), 6h 31m: Originally scheduled for Day 4 but postponed because of space sickness among the crew. The astronauts installed a second sunshade over the one set up by the previous crew because tests had shown that its nylon fabric could deteriorate after prolonged exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation.
2. 24 August (Garriott and Lousma), 4h 31m: The crew changed out all the film cartridges on the telescope mount, as planned prior to launch, but also installed a cable for a new gyro package and attached samples of the parasol material to a handrail.
3. 22 September (Bean and Garriott), 2h 41m: The crew retrieved the film cartridges plus one of the parasol samples. During this EVA the astronauts had no cooling water circulating through their suits because of a leak in the Airlock Module system; however air cooling proved adequate as the tasks being carried out were undemanding.

Total EVA time for Garriott was 13h 43m; for Lousma, 11h 2m and for Bean 2h 41m.

 

 

 

1977 Space Shuttle Orbiter/SCA Flight CA-3

Enterprise crew: Fred Haise (CDR); Gordon Fullerton (P)

 

The third Captive-Active flight was a complete dress-rehearsal of the free flights to come, following all the procedures right up to the point where the explosive bolts would be triggered to release the Enterprise. During the climb to separation altitude, however, the Orbiter’s caution and warning system alerted the crew to excessively high temperatures in the exhaust system of APU No. 1 and as dictated by the flight rules Fullerton shut it down. Telemetry at Mission Control, however, seemed to indicate a sensor malfunction rather than a genuine problem in the APU and after a few minutes’ consideration the flight was allowed to proceed. As the assembly continued to climb, Haise and Fullerton tested the Orbiter’s aerodynamic control surfaces. Some fifteen minutes after take-off, the combination started along its pre-release trajectory, heading due north before turning through 180° and heading south for 135km. At the southern end of the course it looped round to fly north again, at the same time increasing height to 9,200m. During this period checks had been carried out on the TACAN system, which would guide the Orbiter back from space down to an altitude of 3,000m after which the microwave beam system would take over. A little less than 48 minutes after take-off, the assembly pitched its nose down and accelerated to 270 knots, which brought it to a point 13.9km to the right of the runway at the moment of simulated separation. Now the linked craft followed a U-shaped trajectory, a course similar to that of the Orbiter alone in free flight. At a height of some 700m the assembly levelled out and flew over the runway, then banked round in a wide circle before landing. As the 747 was rolling along the runway, and before its nose-wheel touched the ground, Haise and Fullerton lowered the Enterprise’s own undercarriage to bring the flight—and Phase Two of the test programme—to a conclusion.

 

 

 

1999 STS-93 landing

Crew: Eileen Collins (CDR); Jeff Ashby (P); Catherine Coleman, Steve Hawley, Michel Tognini [France] (MS)

Landing site: Kennedy Space Center

 

This mission had deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Flight time was 4d 22h 50m; 80 orbits.

 

 

 

2017 Soyuz MS-05 launch

Crew: Sergei Ryazansky (CDR); Randy Bresnik [USA], Paolo Nespoli [Italy] (FE)

 

ISS Expeditions 52/53. Docking followed the fast-track rendezvous just six hours into the flight. The cosmonauts joined the current station crew, which had Peggy Whitson in command (her second stint as ISS Commander). She had been aboard since the previous November and would remain there until September, shattering the female single-flight duration record.

 

[GordonD]

29 JULY

 

1960 MA-1

 

Despite its designation, this was not the first launch of a Mercury-Atlas combination: the previous year a flight named 'Big Joe' had been carried out. Acting on the results gained from that, Convair engineers had begun a weight reduction programme on the Atlas: in some areas of the upper structure the thickness of the stainless steel skin was reduced from 0.5cm to 0.25cm, resulting in a weight saving of 45.36kg. The objectives of the Mercury-Atlas 1 flight were to check the integrity of the spacecraft structure and to evaluate the Atlas’s abort-sensing detection system (ASIS). The spacecraft carried no escape tower and while the posigrade separation motors were live, the retro-rockets were dummies. Launch was delayed by some 45 minutes due to bad weather and some minor technical problems but at 0913 local time the Atlas lifted off, watched by the seven Group 1 astronauts. Seconds after launch, the vehicle flew into the low cloud cover and vanished from sight. Just before the minute mark, at the moment of Maximum Dynamic Pressure, the launch vehicle’s liquid oxygen tank collapsed close to the spacecraft adapter. The ASIS registered the sudden loss of thrust  and electrical power (but not the drop in tank pressure) and sent an abort signal to the spacecraft—but as no escape system was fitted, nothing happened: ironic, in view of the repeated attempts to simulate a Max-Q abort. The spacecraft did not separate from the launcher as this had been planned for three minutes into the flight and the systems had not yet been activated.  While the Atlas broke up, the capsule apparently remained attached to the adapter section and the front part of the LOX tank dome. The parachutes did not open and observers on the ground saw debris falling through the cloud cover and landing in the ocean.  Fortunately much of this was in relatively shallow water, only 12m deep, so salvage operations were made easier and in the end most of the spacecraft, the booster engines and the LOX vent valve were recovered. Examination of this latter component helped disprove the theory that the valve was badly supported in the tank dome and may have been fatigued to the point that it failed at the moment of Max-Q. Attention then turned to the weight-reduction programme and eventually it was concluded that the thin skin of the lighter Atlas had been unable to withstand the dynamic stresses. The recommendation was made that future launch vehicles revert to the thicker skin and that the spacecraft adapter be strengthened.

 

 

 

1982 Salyut 6 re-entry

 

The second generation space station had been highly successful: the addition of a second docking port meant that Progress cargo craft could deliver fresh supplies and propellant, and that relief crews could exchange Soyuz craft, enabling Salyut expeditions to be extended almost indefinitely. By the time the decision was taken to bring it down, Salyut 6 had hosted six main expeditions (the longest being 184 days) and ten visiting crews, including cosmonauts from Warsaw Pact countries under the Interkosmos programme. In addition, following the departure of the last occupants, an expansion module designated Cosmos 1267 had docked, setting the scene for future stations that would be put together in orbit. Salyut entered the atmosphere and broke up after 1,764 days aloft (683 of them with crew aboard) during which it completed 28,024 orbits and travelled 1,136,861,900km.

 

 

1984 Soyuz T-12 landing

Crew: Vladimir Dzhanibekov (CDR); Svetlana Savitskaya (FE); Igor Volk (RC)

Landing site: 140 km SE of Dzheskasgan

 

Visiting Flight to Salyut 7, during which Savitskaya became the first female to fly in space twice and to carry out an EVA - both records which the USA had been planning to set on an upcoming Shuttle mission. Flight time was 11d 19h 15m; 186 orbits.

 

 

1985 STS-51F launch

Crew: Gordon Fullerton (CDR); Roy Bridges (P); Karl Henize, Story Musgrave, Anthony England (MS); Loren Acton, John-David Bartoe (PS)

 

Nineteenth Shuttle mission; eighth flight of Challenger.

This was Spacelab 2, although the pressurised module was not carried: the experiments were installed on pallets in the payload bay and operated from the aft flight deck. The original launch attempt, on 12 July, had been halted at T-3 seconds, with the engines already running: a coolant valve malfunction in Engine #2 caused a shutdown, the second time in the Shuttle programme that this had happened. The rescheduled launch was delayed by 97 minutes due to a computer fault but eventually it got under way. However three and a half minutes into the flight one of the centre engine's temperature sensors failed. Some two minutes later the second sensor also failed and the engine was shut down, the only time in the programme that a Main Engine failure was experienced. The Shuttle went into Abort to Orbit mode and continued its climb but at T+8 minutes the same sensor in the right engine failed and readings from the second one were nearing the critical point. The Booster Systems Engineer at Mission Control advised the crew to inhibit any further automatic shutdowns as the loss of another engine would mean the Shuttle failing to reach orbit and having to follow another, more hazardous, abort scenario with the possible loss of the vehicle and crew. Ultimately Challenger made it into orbit but it was somewhat lower than planned; however the crew were able to carry out their original mission.

[GordonD]

30 JULY

 

1965 A-105/SA-10

 

The final flight of the standard Saturn I launch vehicle was brought forward to the end of July to give engineers more time to carry out the modifications to the launch pad, readying it for use with the uprated version of the rocket, the Saturn IB. The third Pegasus satellite occupied its usual position inside the shell of the Service Module, BP-9—the last boilerplate craft to fly. In a textbook mission that brought the Saturn I programme to a successful conclusion, the mock-up CSM was placed in a 534 x 519km orbit before it separated to allow Pegasus 3 to carry out its mission.

 

 

1971 Apollo 15 lunar landing

LM: Falcon
Crew: Dave Scott (CDR); Jim Irwin (LMP)
Landing site: 26° 7' 55.99" N 3° 38' 1.90" E (Hadley Rille)

 

As the LM began its approach to the lunar surface, it was determined that it was some 6km to the east of the planned landing site. Scott took manual control and brought it down within a few hundred metres of the target. Shortly after touchdown Scott carried out an action unique on the landing missions: the LM's top hatch was opened and he climbed onto the ascent engine cover to look at the surrounding landscape. This lasted 33 minutes and was classed as a Stand-up EVA as his body was still partly within the spacecraft. In the lunar gravity he found no difficulty in supporting his weight on his elbows on the hatch rim. Following this the astronauts had a sleep period before beginning the Moonwalks proper. Three were carried out:

1. 31 July, 6h 34m: As Scott stepped onto the lunar surface he said, "As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realise there's a fundamental truth to our nature. Man must explore. And this is exploration at its greatest." The Lunar Roving Vehicle was deployed from the side of the LM and the astronauts headed for Elbow Crater. The front wheel steering did not work but the LRV could be controlled equally well using just the rear steering. On their return to the LM the crew deployed the surface experiment package, known as ALSEP. Scott had used more oxygen than anticipated so the EVA was terminated 30 minutes early. It was also discovered that Irwin's water bag had not worked and he had gone seven hours without a drink.
2. 1 August, 7h 13m: The target was Mount Hadley Delta. During this EVA the crew collected the most famous sample of the entire Apollo programme: the so-called Genesis Rock, originally thought to be part of the Moon's primordial crust but actually formed after the crust had solidified and "only" some four billion years old. Back at the LM the astronauts made a second attempt to drill holes for the heat-flow experiment: the previous day, the surface had been too hard and the drill got stuck. Things were only a little better this time and again the task was postponed. Scott also had problems drilling for a deep core sample: though he reached a depth of 2.4m he was unable to extract the sample tube. 
3. 2 August, 4h 20m: Scott finally managed to extract the deep core sample but when he went to dismantle the tubes he found that the vice built into the Rover had been fitted backwards. The LRV's destination this time was Hadley Rille itself, but by this time a problem had been found with the Rover's camera: any attempt to pan up or down would cause it to flop down so it was pointing uselessly at the ground, and it had to be repointed by hand. This would later mean there would be no proper footage of the ascent stage launch. Back at the LM Scott carried out possibly the most famous experiment ever conducted on the Moon, when he dropped a falcon feather and a hammer to prove that they would hit the ground at the same time, as predicted by Galileo. Finally he drove the LRV some 90m away from the LM and parked it so the launch of the ascent stage could be filmed. He also deposited a statuette known as the Fallen Astronaut and a plaque containing the names of fourteen astronauts and cosmonauts who had lost their lives (two cosmonauts, Valentin Bondarenko and Grigori Nelyubov, were not included as their deaths had not been made public at the time).

Total EVA time for Irwin was 18h 7m; for Scott, including his SEVA, 18h 40m.

 

 

 

1987 Soyuz TM-2 landing

Crew: Aleksandr Viktorenko (CDR); Aleksandr Leveykin (FE); Muhammed Faris [Syria] (RC)

Landing site: 140 km NE of Arkalyk

 

Only Leveykin had been launched aboard the spacecraft, back in February: his flight time was 174d 3h 26m and 2,755 orbits. The other two cosmonauts were launched in Soyuz TM-3 a week earlier and had been in space for just 7d 23h 5m, 126 orbits.

[GordonD]

31 JULY

 

1980 Soyuz 36 landing

Crew: Viktor Gorbatko (CDR); Pham Tuan [Vietnam] (RC)

Landing site: 140 km SE of Dzheskasgan

 

This was a Salyut 6 Taxi Flight: the crew had been launched aboard Soyuz 37 but left their fresher craft behind for the use of the long-term station residents. Flight time was 7d 20h 42m and 124 orbits.

 

 

1992 STS-46 launch

Crew: Loren Shriver (CDR); Andrew Allen (P); Claude Nicollier [Switzerland), Marsha Ivins, Jeff Hoffman, Franklin Chang-Diaz (MS); Franco Malerba [Italy] (PS)

 

49th Shuttle mission; 12th flight of Atlantis

Primary payload was the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA), a pallet built by the European Space Agency carrying seventy experiments. This was deployed a day later than planned due to a problem with its data handling system but eventually boosted itself into its operational orbit almost 500km high. The Shuttle also carried the first Tethered Satellite System, an Italian-built probe attached to the Orbiter by a 19km-long cable. The idea was to unreel the cable with the payload bay facing away from Earth and thus generate electricity by dragging the probe through the Earth's magnetic field at orbital velocity. Unfortunately the tether jammed with the satellite only 260 metres out and all attempts to release it failed. The probe was brought back in and stowed for re-entry.

 

 

2009 STS-127 landing

Crew: Mark Polansky (CDR); Douglas Hurley (P); David Wolf, Chris Cassidy, Julie Payette [Canada], Tom Marshburn, Koichi Wakata [Japan] (MS)

Landing site: Kennedy Space Center

 

Wakata had been a member of ISS Expeditions 18/19/20 and had been replaced aboard the station by Tim Kopra. His flight time was 137d 15h 4m and 2,166 orbits. Flight time for the rest of the crew was 15d 16h 45m, 248 orbits.