Where the segments came together, rubber O-rings were used to create a tight seal to prevent exhaust gases from leaking at these joints. These solid rockets were not one piece, but were segments stacked together to form the rocket. The night before the scheduled launch, engineers with Morton-Thiokol, the manufacturer of the shuttle's solid rocket motors, expressed worries as to how the cold would affect the twin solid rockets attached to either side of the shuttle's external fuel tank. It was this forecast of very cold temperatures that caused concern among scientists and engineers with the space shuttle program. With the passage of the cold front on January 27, arctic air dropped into Florida, setting record lows across the state. Those strong winds were caused by a cold front that would bring freezing temperatures to the launch site the next morning.Īnd with that, that stage was set for the events of January 28. By the time they resolved the problem, winds had picked up at Kennedy Space Center and were too strong for an emergency return to launch site abort if necessary. During orbiter closeout, technicians ran into problems with an exterior hatch handle. However, the bad weather never developed and the shuttle could have launched that day.Īll looked "go" for launch on January 27. The forecast for January 26 called for "no-go" conditions during the launch window, so NASA officials decided to cancel the planned launch for that day based on the forecast. The next delay was for weather that never happened. In the event of an emergency, there were designated runways around the world if the shuttle needed to make an emergency landing after launch. The next launch reschedule was because of bad weather at the shuttle's Trans-Atlantic abort site at Dakar, Senegal. This led to launch reschedules for Challenger's flight. The weather prevented the orbiter from returning to Earth three times. The first was when the previous mission, STS-61C, a Space Shuttle Columbia flight, had multiple landing delays while trying to end its mission earlier that January. Successful completion of this test ensures both the crew and the ground systems teams at Kennedy are prepared and understand the timeline of their events for launch day.Before the fateful launch on that cold January morning, there were several instances when weather played a role leading up to the accident. “I actually had to stop and just stay in the moment to really let it all sink in.” “When we walked out that crew access arm, I just had images of all those Apollo launches and shuttle launches that I saw as a kid and it was unreal,” Glover said. From this area, the astronauts will have access to enter and exit the Orion spacecraft – only for this test, there was no Orion or SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. Upon arrival at the pad, the crew headed onto the mobile launcher and proceeded up the tower to the white room inside the crew access arm. Wiseman and Glover headed over in the first electric vehicle as Koch and Hansen followed them in the second. They then departed in NASA’s new Artemis crew transportation fleet to take them to Launch Pad 39B, traversing the nine-mile journey to the pad. The crew awoke at their crew quarters inside Kennedy’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkouts building before putting on test versions of the Orion crew survival system spacesuits they will wear on launch day. On Wednesday, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, practiced the procedures they will undergo on launch day to prepare for their ride to space. The Artemis II crew and teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program successfully completed the first in a series of integrated ground system tests at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for their mission around the Moon. The test ensures the ground systems team is ready to support the crew timeline on launch day. Artemis II astronauts, from left, NASA astronaut Victor Glover (left), CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman stand on the crew access arm of the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B as part of an integrated ground systems test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Sept.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |