Shuttle damaged during thunderstorm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17362178/
Fueling operations during a thunderstorm?
Were they loading up the hypergolics, or doing a test filling of the ET?

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17362178/
Fueling operations during a thunderstorm?
Were they loading up the hypergolics, or doing a test filling of the ET?


It was hit by hail:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...ain/index.html
If it did that to the tank's insulation...what about the TPS tiles?
This doesn't look good.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Pat Flannery wrote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17362178/
Fueling operations during a thunderstorm?
Were they loading up the hypergolics, or doing a test filling of the ET?


It was hit by hail:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...ain/index.html
If it did that to the tank's insulation...what about the TPS tiles?
This doesn't look good.

Shuttle operations normally has the shuttle sitting at the pad for long
periods of time before a launch. I believe the shuttle was on the pad
because there is a launch scheduled for March, but you can check that
yourself. ;-)

A better approach would be to get the vehicle ready in the VAB, roll it out,
and launch it in a few days. I believe this was done once or twice during
the Apollo/Saturn days. I believe Henry has commented about this in the
past, so Google Groups ought to be able to find it.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
It was hit by hail:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sh...ain/index.html
If it did that to the tank's insulation...what about the TPS tiles?

Note that the pad service structure includes weather shields that cover
the orbiter, although not the ET.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
Jeff Findley wrote:
A better approach would be to get the vehicle ready in the VAB, roll it out,
and launch it in a few days. I believe this was done once or twice during
the Apollo/Saturn days. I believe Henry has commented about this...

It wasn't quite *that* quick, but Skylab did cut the on-pad time down
considerably in a (successful) quest for cost reductions.

There is no *fundamental* reason why you couldn't do what Ariane 5 does,
and roll out to the pad the morning of the launch. There's nothing that
inherently *must* be done after rollout except ET fueling and inserting
the crew; those steps needn't take more than a few hours.

However, to retrofit such an operations concept into the shuttle system
*now* would be costly and disruptive, because lots of procedures and even
hardware are built around the idea that the shuttle will spend much longer
on the pad, and that operations like cargo loading will mostly be done
there.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Jeff Findley wrote:
Shuttle operations normally has the shuttle sitting at the pad for long
periods of time before a launch. I believe the shuttle was on the pad
because there is a launch scheduled for March, but you can check that
yourself. ;-)

A better approach would be to get the vehicle ready in the VAB, roll it out,
and launch it in a few days. I believe this was done once or twice during
the Apollo/Saturn days. I believe Henry has commented about this in the
past, so Google Groups ought to be able to find it.



The launch has been pushed back at _least_ a month; if the description
of some of the hail being the size of golf balls is accurate:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1198
Then this is pretty bad indeed.
There apparently is also some hail damage to the TPS.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

The launch has been pushed back at _least_ a month; if the description
of some of the hail being the size of golf balls is accurate:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1198
Then this is pretty bad indeed.
There apparently is also some hail damage to the TPS.


Here's a high resolution view of the damage:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/1...7pd0547-lg.jpg
This doesn't look like what golf ball sized hail would do.
As far as scale goes, that black top cap is around 4 - 5 feet wide at
its base, so most of the dings are probably around an inch in diameter.
On the other hand, there are a hell of a lot of them.
I don't know what they do in a case like this...if they try to layer
more foam onto it, I'd be concerned about it de-bonding from the lower
layer and shedding in flight.
If it were up to me, I'd stick a new ET on it, and send this one back to
Michaud to get stripped and re-foamed.
What still concerns me is the TPS...hail in this quantity could wreak
havoc on the tiles, and having to re-tile an orbiter could be hideously
expensive and time consuming.

Pat

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jeff Findley wrote:
A better approach would be to get the vehicle ready in the VAB, roll it
out,
and launch it in a few days. I believe this was done once or twice during
the Apollo/Saturn days. I believe Henry has commented about this...

It wasn't quite *that* quick, but Skylab did cut the on-pad time down
considerably in a (successful) quest for cost reductions.

There is no *fundamental* reason why you couldn't do what Ariane 5 does,
and roll out to the pad the morning of the launch. There's nothing that
inherently *must* be done after rollout except ET fueling and inserting
the crew; those steps needn't take more than a few hours.

Well even early on payload insertion was often planned for at the pad.

And you'd probably want to roll out a few days in advance, if only to plan
for cooler, more stable morning air.


However, to retrofit such an operations concept into the shuttle system
*now* would be costly and disruptive, because lots of procedures and even
hardware are built around the idea that the shuttle will spend much longer
on the pad, and that operations like cargo loading will mostly be done
there.

That was pretty much from day one as I understand it.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |


--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting
sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com

Henry Spencer wrote:

However, to retrofit such an operations concept into the shuttle system
*now* would be costly and disruptive, because lots of procedures and even
hardware are built around the idea that the shuttle will spend much longer
on the pad, and that operations like cargo loading will mostly be done
there.

What's odd about the way we do it is that if they had hit the original
expected launch rates (one or more each month) this way of doing it
wouldn't work.
This fluke storm may make them rethink the amount of time they want it
to spend on the pad.
In retrospect, it might have been a lot better to have built one of
those Vandenberg-style Shuttle launch complexes at the Cape.
http://www.spaceistheplace.ca/slc6a.jpg
http://www.spaceistheplace.ca/vanden01.jpg
No hail, lightning protection, no birds making holes in the the
insulation on the ET, no rain causing zinc primer laced water to get on
the RCC and eat it away incrementally, and you could warm it enough
inside that Challenger might not have happened.

Pat

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:50:11 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:


If it were up to me, I'd stick a new ET on it, and send this one back to
Michaud to get stripped and re-foamed.

I suspect that is exactly what they'll do. That means waiting for the
STS-118 Tank to arrive, so launch is off until late May.

What still concerns me is the TPS...hail in this quantity could wreak
havoc on the tiles, and having to re-tile an orbiter could be hideously
expensive and time consuming.

I don't think the tiles took the brunt of the hail, though, being
concealed mostly by the RSS.

Brian