Discovery Takes Flight

As Discovery’s wheels rolled to a stop on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, the Orbiter completed not only its 31st mission, the most of any Orbiter, but also one of the most monumental and successful missions in Shuttle history.

The first of two Return to Flight missions, STS-114 was a culmination of two and a half years of research, training, testing, dedication and perseverance of every contractor and government employee in the space program. Over the 14-day mission, Discovery and her crew amazed the world with their accomplishments, including the first-ever back flip of the Orbiter, an unprecedented space walk to the underbelly of the Shuttle, and the successful repair of the Orbiter while docked to the International Space Station (ISS). Discovery and Station crews also resupplied the ISS with more than 12,000 pounds of equipment and supplies and carried about 7,000 pounds of Station material back to Earth, leaving ISS in impeccable condition.

The world’s eyes were on Discovery as she took flight in spectacular fashion on the morning of July 26. New ground-based imagery systems along with cameras on the Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tank (ET) provided never-before-seen views of the nearly flawless launch and ascent. Discovery’s crew successfully photographed the ET after separation providing even more images. The resulting new data and imagery was collected, and analysis by flight controllers began right away.

Discovery crewmembers took a close-up look at the Orbiter’s Thermal Protection System using the new Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) on flight day two. The Shuttle’s robotic Canadarm was used to maneuver the 50-foot OBSS and its laser-scanner for the survey to scan the Orbiter for any damage caused by debris during ascent. The data collected was expanded on flight day three when Commander Eileen Collins guided Discovery through the first ever “Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver (RPM).”

“We began initial design of the RPM within about two weeks of the accident,” said USA Flight Design Engineer Mark Schrock. “We were asked by NASA to come up with a method of having the ISS crew photograph the belly of the Orbiter while we were at close range. The proximity operations group had a brainstorming session and came up with a candidate design and immediately tested it in our desktop flight simulator. The results showed the maneuver worked well, and the design has only been modified slightly since the end of Feb 2003.”

Discovery was about 600 feet from the ISS when Station Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer and Flight Engineer John Phillips took photos for about a minute and a half as Collins guided the spacecraft through the first-ever slow motion back flip.

“The RPM maneuver allows for the ISS crew to have approximately 1.5 minutes to photograph the underside of the Orbiter,” said USA Flight Design Engineer Jessica LoPresti. “Although intended as a way to inspect the tiles on the Orbiter, during STS-114, the photographs led to the discovery of the protruding gap fillers, which were ultimately removed during an extravehicular activity (EVA) prior to landing. For the foreseeable future, the RPM is intended as a permanent addition to the Orbiter’s approach to Station. It was a fulfilling experience to see the RPM go from inception to actually seeing it performed live in mission control.”

Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Stephen Robinson accomplished three spacewalks while at the ISS. During the first EVA, the spacewalkers tested new techniques for replacing or repairing damaged tiles on the Space Shuttle. For the repair demonstration, they worked with tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon intentionally damaged on the ground and brought into space in Discovery’s cargo bay.

On flight day seven, the spacewalkers spent seven hours replacing a 600-pound gyroscope on the ISS, leaving the orbiting laboratory with a complete functional set of four gyroscopes. These control moment gyros maintain the Station’s orientation in space.

The third spacewalk occurred on flight day nine. During this six-hour event, Noguchi and Robinson installed and activated an external stowage platform on the Station’s Quest Airlock.
The platform is designed to hold orbital replacement units that will be delivered to the Station in the future. Noguchi also installed another Materials International Space Station Experiment. This was also the EVA where Robinson rode the end of the Station’s Canadarm2 to the underside of Discovery to remove gap fillers from between the Orbiter’s heat shielding tiles.

“The gap filler work was completely unexpected, but the entire EVA team did a great job planning and executing the work,” said STS-114 Lead EVA Officer Cindy Begley. “While they never trained for this specific task, the crew had to react to many changes in their EVA and robotics training over the last two years, and their versatility and proficiency really showed.”

After nine days of cooperative work, completing some breathtaking EVAs and more than 30 major mission objectives, including the cleanup and restocking of the Space Station, the STS-114 prepared to undock from the Station and head home.

After landing in California, Discovery returned to Kennedy Space Center atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (a modified Boeing 747) on Aug. 21.

Despite the many successes of STS-114, future Shuttle flights have been delayed due to some issues concerning the loss of foam from the ET and the protruding gap fillers on the underside of the Orbiter. NASA Tiger Teams and a Marshall Space Flight Center Action Team have been put together to review the data to determine the most likely root cause or causes of the foam loss.

“It is important to remember that Return to Flight is not just about one flight,” said USA President and Chief Executive Officer Mike McCulley. “It’s about a step-by-step start down the path toward the nation’s Vision for Space Exploration, the goal of which is returning astronauts to the moon and eventually heading to Mars,” McCulley continued. “It is a process of evaluating performance under flight conditions, validating changes and making adjustments in order to ensure our nation’s ability to complete missions of the Shuttle and ISS safely and successfully.”

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