Is Chris Kraft's "mission rules" book available somewhere?

In his book "Flight - My Life in Mission Control" Chris Kraft keeps
refering to a mission rules/procedure book - one of the two bibles of
mission control (the other being the book of schematics). Is this book
available anywhere?

"Bar Code" wrote:
In his book "Flight - My Life in Mission Control" Chris Kraft keeps
refering to a mission rules/procedure book - one of the two bibles of
mission control (the other being the book of schematics). Is this book
available anywhere?

Chris is referring to the Flight Rules. It's not a book that you can get at
Barnes & Noble, it's a "living document" that is maintained by the Mission
Operations Directorate at JSC for use *exclusively* by Flight Controllers in
the Mission Control Center.

Up until FOIA requests after Columbia's demise, it was absolutely excluded
from Internet distribution.

Now, if you go here (http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/foia/index.html), you can
find both the last "generic" set and the "flight-specific" set:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_generic.pdf (5.4MB PDF file!)
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_sts107.pdf (2.7MB PDF file!)

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

Thank you very much for that pointer! I looked at it today and it was
extremely interesting. Do you believe there are publicly available archived
versions of this document as it stood in 1970 or so?

Thank you again.

Roger Balettie wrote:

"Bar Code" wrote:
In his book "Flight - My Life in Mission Control" Chris Kraft keeps
refering to a mission rules/procedure book - one of the two bibles of
mission control (the other being the book of schematics). Is this book
available anywhere?

Chris is referring to the Flight Rules. It's not a book that you can get at
Barnes & Noble, it's a "living document" that is maintained by the Mission
Operations Directorate at JSC for use *exclusively* by Flight Controllers in
the Mission Control Center.

Up until FOIA requests after Columbia's demise, it was absolutely excluded
from Internet distribution.

Now, if you go here (http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/foia/index.html), you can
find both the last "generic" set and the "flight-specific" set:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_generic.pdf (5.4MB PDF file!)
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_sts107.pdf (2.7MB PDF file!)

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

"Roger Balettie" wrote:
Now, if you go here (http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/foia/index.html), you can
find both the last "generic" set and the "flight-specific" set:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_generic.pdf (5.4MB PDF file!)

I notice that this set is missing pages... 2-1 through 2-9 at least.

What are the other volumes of the set?

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

(Derek Lyons) wrote in
:

"Roger Balettie" wrote:
Now, if you go here (http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/foia/index.html),
you can find both the last "generic" set and the "flight-specific"
set:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_generic.pdf (5.4MB PDF
file!)

I notice that this set is missing pages... all of section 1 and 2-1
through 2-9 at least.

Flight Rules often have updates called Page Change Notices (PCNs). These
only replace the changed from the existing book. The Flight Rules can
sometimes accumulate several PCNs before the book gets republished.

It looks to me like this PDF file consists of PCN-1 (11/21/02), *then* the
Final book (6/20/02). Since the PCN didn't change anything in section 1 or
pages 2-1 through 2-8, those pages don't appear when you leaf through the
book from the beginning. I found them starting on p. 447 of the PDF.
Confusing, to say the least. I wish they'd incorporated the PCN before
producing the PDF file.

What are the other volumes of the set?

Volume A - Shuttle (All Flights)
Volume B - ISS (Generic)
Volume C - Shuttle/ISS Joint Rules
Volume D - Soyuz/Progress/ISS Joint Rules
Volume E - ATV/ISS Joint Rules

Flight-specific shuttle rules, and increment-specific ISS rules, are
contained in separate Annexes.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in
:

Flight Rules often have updates called Page Change Notices (PCNs).
These only replace the changed from the existing book.

Oops... that should be either "changed pages" or "pages that were changed".


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

"Derek Lyons" wrote:
I notice that this set is missing pages... all of section 1 and 2-1
through 2-9 at least.

Jorge's answer is correct... this PDF (annoyingly) has the PCN updates
first, then the "full doc" afterwards. :/

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

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

(Derek Lyons) wrote in
:

"Roger Balettie" wrote:
Now, if you go here (http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/foia/index.html),
you can find both the last "generic" set and the "flight-specific"
set:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/news/columbia/fr_generic.pdf (5.4MB PDF
file!)

I notice that this set is missing pages... all of section 1 and 2-1
through 2-9 at least.

Flight Rules often have updates called Page Change Notices (PCNs). These
only replace the changed from the existing book. The Flight Rules can
sometimes accumulate several PCNs before the book gets republished.

nods Same thing we had, except they were called simply 'changes'
with occasional 'revisions' when there was a large change. We also
had 'message changes', which were essentially memos to change one or
two lines.

After some of the rules there is an 'R' in a circle, followed by a
number. What does that stand for?

It looks to me like this PDF file consists of PCN-1 (11/21/02), *then* the
Final book (6/20/02). Since the PCN didn't change anything in section 1 or
pages 2-1 through 2-8, those pages don't appear when you leaf through the
book from the beginning. I found them starting on p. 447 of the PDF.
Confusing, to say the least. I wish they'd incorporated the PCN before
producing the PDF file.

Yah. I flipped through the first few pages (the PCN) then to the end,
so it appeared to be a complete document missing some pages at the
start.

What are the other volumes of the set?

Volume A - Shuttle (All Flights)
Volume B - ISS (Generic)
Volume C - Shuttle/ISS Joint Rules
Volume D - Soyuz/Progress/ISS Joint Rules
Volume E - ATV/ISS Joint Rules

Flight-specific shuttle rules, and increment-specific ISS rules, are
contained in separate Annexes.

Thanks.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

(Derek Lyons) wrote in
:

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

Flight Rules often have updates called Page Change Notices (PCNs).
These only replace the changed from the existing book. The Flight
Rules can sometimes accumulate several PCNs before the book gets
republished.

nods Same thing we had, except they were called simply 'changes'
with occasional 'revisions' when there was a large change. We also
had 'message changes', which were essentially memos to change one or
two lines.

We have those as well, but we call them "pen & inks".

After some of the rules there is an 'R' in a circle, followed by a
number. What does that stand for?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's used to mark a rule that has been
revised. The first six digits of the number are the date of the change
(mmddyy), followed by a dash, then the Change Request (CR) number.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 12:31:26 GMT, "Roger Balettie"
wrote:

"Derek Lyons" wrote:
I notice that this set is missing pages... all of section 1 and 2-1
through 2-9 at least.

Jorge's answer is correct... this PDF (annoyingly) has the PCN updates
first, then the "full doc" afterwards. :/

That's to give everyone the thrill of updating their version. It's
especially fun when the update pages have the three holes slightly
mis-punched, so they hang up in the three-ring binder.

I first learned to loathe this whole process with IBM manuals,
eventually moving on to Dash-1s and NATOPS manuals. Dryden didn't do
updates of the BOM (Basic Operations Manual), just changes.
Project-specific flight rules and checklists were never updated
, but always re-issued as new versions.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer