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December 20,1999 - Flight Day 2 Activities

View of the Payload Bay View of the Payload Bay
View of the Payload Bay from Orbit

Johnson Space Center STS-103 Report # 03 Saturday, December 21, 1999, 12:30 am EST
HST Project Update
Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Status Report
Johnson Space Center STS-103 Report # 02 Friday, December 20, 1999, 11:30 am EST
GSFC Space Telescope Operations Control Center Report
Flight Day 2 Images


Johnson Space Center STS-103, Mission Control Center
Status Report # 03
Monday, December, 21, 1999 - 12:30 a.m.
EST

The seven members of the STS-103 crew of Discovery completed a day of preparation Monday for a Tuesday capture of the Hubble Space Telescope. During three days of space walks, Hubble’s capability to conduct astronomical observations will be restored and some of its equipment upgraded.

Discovery's robotic arm and the four space suits the astronauts will use on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday space walks, checked out with no major problems.

As the crew prepared for its sleep period, Discovery was 1,100 statute miles behind Hubble, closing at a rate of 150 statute miles per orbit. Discovery’s orbit had been adjusted by firing the two Orbital Maneuvering System engines, mounted in pods on either side of the spacecraft’s vertical tail fin. That burn added 79 feet per second to the orbiter’s speed. A subsequent firing of Discovery’s smaller Reaction Control System jets further refined the orbit by changing Discovery’s speed by about eight feet per second.

The pressure in Discovery’s cabin was lowered to 10.2 psi at about 1 p.m. Monday. This is part of the procedure to reduce the amount of nitrogen in the blood of space-walking astronauts. Later they will breathe pure oxygen. Those steps are designed to eliminate the possibility of nitrogen bubbles forming in their blood during spacewalks and causing an attack of the “bends,” a condition that can affect deep-sea divers brought to the surface too quickly.

A little after 8:30 p.m. CST, four members of the crew, Commander Curt Brown, Pilot Scott Kelly, and Mission Specialists Jean-Francois Clervoy and Mike Foale, participated in an on-orbit interview with three organizations – CBS News, the Hal Uplinger Millennium TV Network and ABS-PBS Millennium Broadcast.

On Tuesday Discovery will approach the space telescope with a series of burns to match its orbit. The rendezvous' terminal initiation burn is to occur at about 4:30 p.m. when Discovery is about eight miles behind Hubble. Brown and Kelly will maneuver the orbiter to a point directly beneath Hubble, then move upward toward it. Clervoy, using the orbiter's robotic arm, will grapple Hubble about 6:40 p.m. and place it on the Flight Service System in the rear of Discovery’s cargo bay. There, it can be rotated and tilted to enable space-walking astronauts to better access its equipment bays.

Discovery is in an orbit with a high point of 367 statute miles and a low point of 352 miles. All systems are in excellent condition.


HST Project Update for Monday, December 20, 9:30 pm EST

The crew successfully completed checkout operations today, in preparation for the rendezvous with Hubble on Tuesday afternoon. The crew will soon go to sleep and will begin rendezvous activities after their wakeup routine tomorrow.

The Shuttle navigators have put Discovery into an orbit that will bring it very close to Hubble at just the correct time. Discovery is approaching Hubble "from behind", catching up at the rate of about 300 miles per orbit (about 90 minutes an orbit). A rendezvous burn will be made later tonight to stop this rate of approach in preparation for manual proximity operations tomorrow.

We have encountered only a few minor problems. Two temperature sensors on Hubble equipment in the payload bay showed unexpected readings that the team later identified as calibration curve errors. These are easily repaired in software. A new printer on board the Shuttle appears to be having problems, but an older one is working fine.


Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Status Report

Monday, December 20, 1999 (3 p.m. EST)
MISSION: STS-103 - 3rd Hubble Space Telescope Servicin
g Mission

VEHICLE: Discovery/OV-103
LOCATION: On orbit
OFFICIAL LAUNCH DATE/TIME: December 19 at 7:50 p.m. EST
TARGET LANDING DATE/TIME: December 27 at about 5:24 p.m. EST
MISSION DURATION: about 7 days, 21 hours and 34 minutes; with 3 EVAs
CREW: Brown, Kelly, Smith, Foale, Grunsfeld, Nicollier, Clervoy
ORBITAL ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 317 nautical miles/28.45 degrees

Work in progress: Space Shuttle Discovery continues to perform very well on orbit as the flight crew prepares to rendezvous with, grapple and service the Hubble Space Telescope. Following Discovery’s launch last night, workers completed a preliminary walk down of Launch Pad 39B. Inspectors report only minimal damage at the pad.

Just before noon today, the solid rocket booster recovery ships began towing operations and are expected to arrive at Hangar AF Tuesday at about 4:30 a.m. Both boosters are reported to be in good condition following last night’s splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.


Johnson Space Center STS-103, Mission Control Center
Status Report # 02
Monday, December 20, 1999 - 11:30 a.m. EST

Trailing the Hubble Space Telescope by about 3,700 nautical miles and closing, the seven Discovery astronauts were awakened at 9:50 a.m. CST today to the sounds of Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business." The wake-up call from Mission Control began the crew's first full day in orbit. Discovery is closing on the telescope at a rate of about 340 nautical miles with each hour and a half long orbit of Earth.

Today will be a day of preparation for the crew, gearing up for the rendezvous and capture of HST planned for Tuesday and the three maintenance spacewalks that will follow later in the week. At about 1 p.m., European Space Agency astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy will power up Discovery's robotic arm to check its operation. Clervoy will survey Discovery's cargo bay using television cameras on the arm, checking the condition of the equipment planned for installation on the telescope and the cradle that will hold HST during the spacewalks. While Clervoy operates the arm, Payload Commander Steve Smith and Mission Specialist John Grunsfeld will power up the payload bay HST support equipment. Later, around 6 p.m., Commander Curt Brown and Pilot Scott Kelly will check out the laptop computers, navigation aids and flight controls in Discovery's cockpit that will be used for tomorrow's encounter with HST.

Meanwhile, on Discovery's middeck, Grunsfeld, along with European astronaut Claude Nicollier, will begin a check of the four spacesuits onboard. Early in the afternoon, about 1 p.m., the crew will lower the cabin pressure aboard Discovery as part of the spacewalk preparations. This reduces the amount of time the spacewalkers must breathe oxygen as part of a standard protocol to purge nitrogen from the body prior to beginning a spacewalk.

At 8:35 p.m. CST, Brown, Smith, Clervoy and Mike Foale will take a break from their work to talk with CBS news and other television networks about their mission.

As some of their final activities today, the crew will fire Discovery's large orbital maneuvering system engines at 10:32 p.m. to slow the rate at which the Shuttle is closing on HST. A second, smaller engine firing will follow at 11:27 p.m. to further fine tune the Shuttle's approach toward Hubble. Capture of the telescope remains scheduled for 6:41 p.m. Tuesday.

Discovery is in excellent condition, orbiting Earth every 95 minutes, 27 seconds. The high point of Discovery's orbit is 363 statute miles and the low point is 298 statute miles.

The next STS-103 mission status report will be issued at 11 p.m. Monday or as events warrant.


GSFC Space Telescope Operations Control Center Report

This is the HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OPERATIONS CONTROL CENTER from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

It is from this location that the orbiting observatory is managed. The STOCC is the nerve center for Hubble -- all commands to the space telescope are issued from this facility, and data gathered by the observatory arrive here first.

Since Discovery's launch last night, controllers have been monitoring Hubble for the crew's arrival. Controllers report that all the ground systems in the STOCC are performing beautifully, and the Telescope remains in a safe and stable mode. All systems onboard the Telescope are behaving normally. The Hubble is in, what flight controllers call a safe mode, a condition in which the Telescope is not engaged in science gathering.

Hubble entered the safe mode when the fourth of its six gyroscopes failed on orbit. The Hubble requires at least 3 gyroscopes to perform the extremely fine pointing procedures used to lock onto its stellar targets. A primary objective of this mission is to replace all six of Hubble's gyroscopes and return the Telescope to its scientific mission. Last night, controllers commanded both high gain antennae to be stowed in preparation for the Telescope's capture by the Shuttle's robot arm. That activity was accomplished with no problems. Hubble's large 10-foot diameter aperature door which covers the opening to the Telescope's light shield, was closed when Hubble went into its safe mode.

One chore for the astronauts today will be to power up the onboard general purpose computer used to transmit the Hubble telemetry data to the Control Center at Goddard. This computer will enable information on the status of the Hubble's onboard systems to be routed through Discovery once the Telescope is firmly fixed to its servicing platform in the orbiter's payload bay. Normally, these data are down-linked to Goddard directly, via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system. Later today, STOCC controllers will join Houston controllers in a visual inspection of the Space Support Equipment.

These are the two major fixtures in Discovery's payload bay - the Flight Support System and the Orbital Replacement Unit Carrier. The Flight Support System is the platform the Hubble sits in during the servicing mission. It can rotate, raise and lower the Telescope to give the EVA astronauts access to the Telescope. After capture, as the astronauts install new equipment on Hubble, the STOCC team will immediately test it. Later, while the crew sleeps, ground controllers will perform more detailed checkouts. At the end of the mission, the STOCC team will deploy Hubble's high gain antennas and open its aperture door. They will reactivate and check out all Hubble equipment powered off during the servicing call. Then, Discovery's robot arm will release Hubble and normal science operations will resume.