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Atlantis hit by SRB nose cap 1988 defense mission
Latest issue of Air and Space does a peice on "Hoot" Gibson. He
commanded a Dec 2 (1988) defense mission with Atlantis carrying a Pentagon observation sat. Article states that at T=85 sec.the right hand SRB "nose cap" broke loose and "shattered" agsinst the oribters wing. The article states that they used the camera on the arm (with Gibson stating the underside looked like it was hit with "multiple shotgun blasts" Goes on to say that Mission control looked at the encrypted pics and said it was no worse than some other flights(more than likely Gibson feels a tact to keep the crew calm). I had never heard of this incidnet before now. Anybody have any other info???????...................doc |
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Atlantis hit by SRB nose cap 1988 defense mission
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Atlantis hit by SRB nose cap 1988 defense mission
On Mar 21, 1:20*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
wrote: Latest issue of Air and Space does a peice on "Hoot" Gibson. *He commanded a *Dec 2 (1988) defense mission with Atlantis carrying a Pentagon observation sat. *Article states that at T=85 sec.the right hand SRB "nose cap" broke loose and "shattered" agsinst the oribters wing. *The article states that they used the camera on the arm (with Gibson stating the underside looked like it was hit with "multiple shotgun blasts" *Goes on to say that Mission control looked at the encrypted pics and said it was no worse than some other flights(more than likely Gibson feels a tact to keep the crew calm). *I had never heard of this incidnet before now. *Anybody have any other info???????...................doc CAIB report, vol 1, chapter 6, p. 127. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- reread my CAIB (thanks Jorge) and its all there. However it is interesting to hear Gibson say "Nose Cap" as opposed to the CAIB statement of "thermal insulation" struck the orbiter?????? After seeing those pics of the orbiter landing I did recall seeing it before. It appears that there was little impact damgage to the Carbon- carbon leading edge. Impressive photos........Doc |
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Atlantis hit by SRB nose cap 1988 defense mission
wrote: reread my CAIB (thanks Jorge) and its all there. However it is interesting to hear Gibson say "Nose Cap" as opposed to the CAIB statement of "thermal insulation" struck the orbiter?????? After seeing those pics of the orbiter landing I did recall seeing it before. It appears that there was little impact damgage to the Carbon- carbon leading edge. Impressive photos........Doc The RCC looks in good shape, but the landing photo I found doesn't let you see the extent of damage (if any) that occurred to the underside of the Shuttle in regards to the tiles. In regards to the nose cap/thermal insulation question question, it appears what hit the orbiter was ablative thermal insulation that detached from the nose cap of the SRB. According to the Wikipedia article on the flight, this occurred at around 85 seconds into the flight and was visible on the video footage of the ascent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27 This is around 35 seconds before SRB separation (2:05), and somewhat surprisingly, around 25 seconds after maximum dynamic pressure at right around 1:00, when you'd expect anything that was going to fall off to detach under the aerodynamic load. One thing about this flight was that it was only the second one after the return to flight after the loss of Challenger, so you could see why the crew was a little queasy about anything odd going on with the mission. It was rumored that on this flight there was a problem with the DOD payload (thought to be a Lacrosse radarsat) after deployment that required Atlantis to re-rendezvous with it and perform a EVA of some sort. It would be interesting to know if there was any attempt during that EVA to get a better look at the damage to the TPS. Pat |
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Atlantis hit by SRB nose cap 1988 defense mission
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