what if -- Columbia CCTV had spotted FD2 object tumbling off?

"James Oberg" wrote:
"Reed Snellenberger"
Are they actually talking about leaving the umbilical doors open for an
extended period during the flight? They're normally closed fairly soon
after ET sep right now, I think.

You're right, of course. My rec would be leave the doors open a day or two
to see what shakes loose.

Ouch... I totally disagree. I would rather come up with some *other*
solution than not closing these potential "plasma entry points" ASAP!!!!

From what I recall, these are closed very soon after ET sep to make sure
that the Orbiter is in a good "come back home" config underneath. I
wouldn't want to risk that for photography purposes past the ET photos.

There have to be other ways...

Roger
--
Roger Balettie
former Flight Dynamics Officer
Space Shuttle Mission Control
http://www.balettie.com/

"Roger Balettie" wrote in
Ouch... I totally disagree. I would rather come up with some *other*
solution than not closing these potential "plasma entry points" ASAP!!!!

From what I recall, these are closed very soon after ET sep to make sure
that the Orbiter is in a good "come back home" config underneath. I
wouldn't want to risk that for photography purposes past the ET photos.

There have to be other ways...


Could be. Good point on the hazards of keeping them open, but don't forget
that now we're not stuck with the trash-bag-on-a-line desperation EVA access
for manual close. So we have MUCH more ability to manually close them in
case of trouble.

Roger Balettie wrote:

"James Oberg" wrote:
"Reed Snellenberger"
Are they actually talking about leaving the umbilical doors open for an
extended period during the flight? They're normally closed fairly soon
after ET sep right now, I think.

You're right, of course. My rec would be leave the doors open a day or
two to see what shakes loose.

Ouch... I totally disagree. I would rather come up with some *other*
solution than not closing these potential "plasma entry points" ASAP!!!!

From what I recall, these are closed very soon after ET sep to make sure
that the Orbiter is in a good "come back home" config underneath. I
wouldn't want to risk that for photography purposes past the ET photos.

There have to be other ways...

If the orbiter is flying tail first with the payload bay towards the earth,
then a camera in the foward part of the payload bay would have a view of
any debris that is in a lower orbit.

Craig Fink

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 19:09:15 GMT, Craig Fink wrote:

Roger Balettie wrote:

"James Oberg" wrote:
"Reed Snellenberger"
Are they actually talking about leaving the umbilical doors open for an
extended period during the flight? They're normally closed fairly soon
after ET sep right now, I think.

You're right, of course. My rec would be leave the doors open a day or
two to see what shakes loose.

Ouch... I totally disagree. I would rather come up with some *other*
solution than not closing these potential "plasma entry points" ASAP!!!!

From what I recall, these are closed very soon after ET sep to make sure
that the Orbiter is in a good "come back home" config underneath. I
wouldn't want to risk that for photography purposes past the ET photos.

The ET doors are closed within about 10-15 minutes or so after ET Sep, once the
APUs are shut down.

Since there's no TPS there, you want to get the doors closed ASAP to protect
against any future failure that would prevent the door closure (bus failures,
debris, etc.)

From what I remember, the way things are now, the ET umbilical camera operates
automatically and uses all of its film. There is no provision (today) for
having some sort of TV camera there that can downlink video - for one thing,
there are no antennas in that direction, something that they're working on as
part of the RTF effort since they'll want to downlink video from the RMS boom.

In article ,
says...
"James Oberg" wrote:
"Reed Snellenberger"
Are they actually talking about leaving the umbilical doors open for an
extended period during the flight? They're normally closed fairly soon
after ET sep right now, I think.

You're right, of course. My rec would be leave the doors open a day or two
to see what shakes loose.

Ouch... I totally disagree. I would rather come up with some *other*
solution than not closing these potential "plasma entry points" ASAP!!!!

From what I recall, these are closed very soon after ET sep to make sure
that the Orbiter is in a good "come back home" config underneath. I
wouldn't want to risk that for photography purposes past the ET photos.

There have to be other ways...

My thought exactly.

--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
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