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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
Servicing
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.
