Jonathan's Space Report<br />No. 493 2003 Feb 8, Cambridge, MA<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><br />*********** SPACESHIP COLUMBIA DESTROYED DURING REENTRY ***************<br /><br /><br />Orbiter OV-102 Columbia was lost 15 minutes before its scheduled landing<br />on Feb 1 at the end of the STS-107 microgravity mission. The seven<br />astronauts were killed when the left wing failed and the spaceship broke<br />apart. Debris has been found over a wide area centered in east Texas<br />near the Palestine, Texas region (site of NASA's balloon launch<br />facility), and stretching from Fort Worth eastward into Louisiana. <br /><br /><br />Columbia was in a 272 x 289 km x 39.0 deg orbit when it fired the OMS<br />engines for deorbit at 1315 UTC for 2min 38s. This dropped the orbit to<br />around 1 x 275 km x 39.0 deg. At 1344 UTC Columbia reached NASA's<br />nominal entry interface at an altitude of 122 km and began the<br />transition from a spaceship to an aircraft. The descent continued with<br />the first hypersonic slalom turn, as the Orbiter crossed the California<br />coast. Up to this point, as Columbia approached maximum reentry<br />heating, everything appeared well.<br /><br /><br />Multiple on-board sensors in the area of the left wing stopped working<br />or showed temperature rises beginning at 1352 UTC, as ground-based<br />observers began to see material apparently breaking off from the fiery<br />trail of the vehicle. Near to 1400 UTC left wing drag increased,<br />causing rapid changes in the required trim. At this point the vehicle<br />appears to have broken into multiple large pieces, either due to<br />structural and thermal failure or to loss of attitude (which I<br />understand would induce structural failure within about a second at this<br />point in the flight). Loss of good signal was at 60 km altitude at Mach<br />18.3, at 1359:22 UTC (according to early reports), a time 15d22h20m22s<br />into the mission. A further 32s of partial telemetry may indicate that<br />the vehicle did not break up until 1359:54 UTC; these times are likely<br />to be revised, and I haven't seen any accurate times on the many amateur<br />videos taken of the breakup. An Aviation Week report claims USAF<br />imagery from the ground showed structural damage to the leading edge of<br />the left wing, indicating the thermal protection system in the wing<br />glove area may have failed. The photo, shown at the Feb 7 briefing,<br />shows an irregular leading edge on the left wing and a cleaner leading<br />edge on the right wing, but it's not clear to me whether that is just an<br />artifact of pixelization noise as opposed to really showing true<br />features on the Shuttle. At this point I remain unconvinced the photo<br />tells us much. One possibility is that the impact of a 1 kg, 0.6m piece<br />of external tank foam 80s into launch may have caused damage, although<br />program officials still claim this is unlikely. I expect a clearer<br />picture of what went wrong will emerge over the next one to two months.<br />It will take longer to know what the impact is for the human spaceflight<br />program as a whole.<br /><br /><br />Condolences to all members of the Shuttle team on the loss of the seven<br />astronauts of the STS-107 crew. All of us with any connection to the<br />space program remain in shock. And kudos to Ron Dittemore, Shuttle<br />Program Manager, for an exceptional performance at the press briefings;<br />despite obvious stress he gave with great dignity honest, clear and<br />detailed assessments of what is currently known and avoided the<br />triteness and euphemism (e.g. "contingency") of much of the rest of<br />NASA's coverage. The fact that the press sometimes misreported what he<br />said is too bad, but I think he helped the world understand what an<br />engineering accident investigation is like, and NASA can be proud that<br />it has representatives like him.<br /><br /><br />One important note: the STS-107 press kit consistently and erroneously<br />refers to the mission as carrying the SLWT (super light weight tank)<br />version of the External Tank. This is a significant error; STS-107's<br />External Tank, ET-93, was actually the older LWT (light weight tank),<br />used for only the second time since 1998. <br /><br /><br />For the record, other fatal accidents during the course of a spaceflight:<br /><br /><br />1967 Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz-1 crash landing<br />1967 Mike Adams, X-15-3 reentry control loss<br />1971 Georgiy Dobrovol'skiy, Vadislav Volkov, Viktor Patsaev, <br /> Soyuz-11 reentry depressurization<br />1986 Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, <br /> Ron McNair, Greg Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe,<br /> Challenger launch accident.<br /><br /><br />It's important to remember that there have also been a large number of<br />very close shaves, including launch aborts, on-board fires and<br />collisions, and a variety of reentry problems. Human spaceflight is a<br />dangerous business and is likely to remain so for the immediate future.<br /><br /><br />The Shuttle program is now grounded indefinitely. This also impacts the<br />International Space Station program and the already-delayed Hubble<br />Space Telescope servicing mission (which would have been flown by Columbia).<br />There are three remaining orbiters (Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour) and<br />it would not be practical to build a replacement; some acceleration of<br />efforts to design a successor vehicle seems likely.<br /><br /><br />Shuttle and Station<br />--------------------<br /><br /><br />Aboard the Space Station, Bowersox and Pettit made a spacewalk from the<br />Quest airlock on Jan 15. The airlock reached vacuum at about 1214 UTC,<br />with hatch open after some difficulties at 1246 UTC and suit battery<br />power at 1250 UTC. The astronauts deployed the central thermal radiator<br />on the P1 truss and moved a tool box to the CETA cart. The hatch was<br />closed around 1938 UTC with repress at 1941 UTC, for a duration of 7h27m<br />(depress/repress), 6h52m (hatch open/close) or 6h51m (NASA rule).<br /><br /><br />Columbia was launched on mission STS-107 on Jan 16 at 1539 UTC. At 1547<br />UTC it reached a 78 x 272 km orbit and the external tank separated. At<br />1620 UTC the OMS-2 burn raised the orbit to 270 x 283 km.<br />Columbia carried out its microgravity research mission for two weeks.<br /><br /><br />Progress M-47 was launched on Feb 2 and docked with the rear port of the<br />Station's Zvezda module at 1449 UTC on Feb 4, delivering enough supplies<br />to keep the Station crew aboard until June if need be.<br /><br /><br />Recent Launches<br />---------------<br /><br /><br />NASA's SORCE satellite was launched by a Pegasus XL from Cape Canaveral on<br />Jan 29. SORCE carries two main instruments, TSIM (the Total Solar<br />Irradiance Monitor) and SOLSTICE (Solar-Stellar Intercomparison<br />Experiment), to study the total solar output for climate studies. It is<br />operated by the University of Colorado/Boulder. The L-1011 carrier plane<br />took off from the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip runway at 1917 UTC on Jan<br />25. Drop over the Atlantic at 2013 UTC was followed by successful burn<br />of all three Pegasus XL stages and orbit insertion at 2022 UTC into a<br />610 x 649 km x 40.0 deg orbit. The satellite was built by Orbital Sciences<br />and uses the LeoStar-2 bus; its mass is 290 kg.<br /><br /><br />Navstar GPS vehicle SVN 56 was launched from Cape Canaveral on Jan 29.<br />The Boeing Delta 7925 entered a 174 x 200 km x 36.9 deg orbit at 1816<br />UTC; the second stage then restarted to enter a 187 x 1157 km x 37.2 deg<br />orbit and separated from the Star 48 third stage which put the GPS<br />satellite in a 182 x 20282 km x 39.0 deg transfer orbit. The second<br />stage then restarted at least twice more to enter a 703 x 806 km x 39.6<br />deg orbit. At around 1000 UTC on Jan 30, the Air Force Research Lab's<br />XSS-10 experimental inspector satellite separated from the second stage<br />and made a series of 35-meter re-approaches to the stage, using a<br />hydrazine propulsion system for stationkeeping and an experimental<br />camera to image the stage. Meanwhile, GPS SVN 56 fired its apogee motor<br />to circularize and raise inclination, entering a 20155 x 20344 km x<br />55.0 deg orbit. It will replace SVN 22 in the navigation constellation.<br /><br /><br />The first Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus Lite rocket was launched on Feb<br />6 from Vandenberg. The Taurus Lite made a suborbital flight with an<br />apogee of 1800 km; it is basically a stretched Pegasus without wings,<br />the first stage being an Orion 50SXLG motor derived from the Pegasus XL<br />first stage and Taurus second stage. Taurus Lite, also known as the<br />Orbital Boost Vehicle (OBV) is currently planned for use as a missile<br />defense interceptor.<br /><br /><br />Errata<br />---------<br /><br /><br />Shenzhou 4 was of course launched from Jiuquan, not Taiyuan. <br /><br /><br />ICESAT has a mass of 959 kg full and 882 kg dry; the 300 kg quoted earlier was for the<br />science instrument alone.<br /><br /><br />Spacewarn Bulletin reports the mass of the Trailblazer Dummy satellite is 420 kg.<br /><br /><br />Table of Recent Launches<br />-----------------------<br /><br /><br />Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.<br /> DES.<br /><br /><br />Dec 2 2205 MEPSI - Endeavour, LEO Technology 52B<br />Dec 5 0242 TDRS 10 Atlas IIA Canaveral SLC36 Comms 55A <br />Dec 11 2221 Stentor ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms F03<br /> Hot Bird 7 ) Comms F03<br />Dec 14 0131 Midori 2 ) H2A-202 Tanegashima Rem.Sensing 56A<br /> WEOS ) Rem.Sensing 56C<br /> FedSat ) Technology 56B<br /> MuLabSat ) Technology 56D<br />Dec 17 2304 NSS 6 Ariane 44L Kourou ELA2 Comms 57A<br />Dec 20 1700 Trailblazer ) Dnepr Baykonur LC109 Dummy 58E<br /> Latinsat A ) Comms 58H<br /> Latinsat B ) Comms 58B<br /> Saudisat 1C ) Comms 58C<br /> Unisat-2 ) Technology 58D<br /> Rubin-2 ) Technology 58A<br />Dec 24 1220 Kosmos-2393 Molniya-M Plesetsk LC16/2 Early warn 59A<br />Dec 25 0737 Kosmos-2394 ) Proton-K/DM-2 Baykonur LC81/23 Navigation 60A<br /> Kosmos-2395 ) 60B<br /> Kosmos-2396 ) 60C<br />Dec 29 1640 Shenzhou 4 Chang Zheng 2F Jiuquan Spaceship 61A<br />Dec 29 2316 Nimiq 2 Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC81/24 Comms 62A<br />Jan 6 1419 Coriolis Titan II Vandenberg SLC4W Environment 01A<br />Jan 13 0045 ICESAT ) Delta 7320-10 Vandenberg SLC2W Environment 02A<br /> CHIPSat ) Astronomy 02B<br />Jan 16 1539 Columbia ) Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 03A<br /> Spacehab ) Lab<br />Jan 25 2013 SORCE Pegasus XL Canaveral RW30/12 Solar obs 04A<br />Jan 29 1806 GPS SVN 56 ) Delta 7925 Canaveral SLC17 Navigation 05A<br /> XSS-10 ) Technology 05B<br />Feb 2 1259 Progress M-47 Soyuz-U Baykonur LC1 Cargo 06A<br /> <br />Current Shuttle Processing Status<br />_________________________________<br /> <br />Orbiters Location Mission Launch Due <br /> <br />OV-102 Columbia Destroyed STS-107 2003 Jan 16 Spacehab<br />OV-103 Discovery OPF Maintenance<br />OV-104 Atlantis VAB STS-114 Unknown ISS ULF1<br />OV-105 Endeavour OPF STS-115 Unknown ISS 12A<br /><br /><br />.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.<br />| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |<br />| Harvard-Smithsonian Center for | |<br /><br /><br />| Astrophysics | |<br />| 60 Garden St, MS6 | |<br />| Cambridge MA 02138 | inter : jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |<br />| USA | jmcdowell@cfa.harvard.edu |<br />| |<br />| JSR: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/jsr.html |<br />| Back issues: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/jsr/back |