NASA Will Have Space Shuttle on Standby for Rescue Mission When Flights Resume

The Associated Press ^ | Feb 19, 2004 | Marcia Dunn

[yonif]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA said Thursday that the shuttle will remain grounded until early next year, and once launches do resume, a second spaceship will be on standby to rescue the astronauts if their craft is damaged in flight. Because of the Columbia disaster one year ago, NASA decided last month that all shuttles from now on will be devoted to completing the international space station. That way, the astronauts can inspect and repair their ships at the orbiting outpost and await rescue there if the damage is too grave.

The rescue shuttle will not necessarily be on the launch pad, but will be ready to fly to the space station within 45 to 90 days, shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said. That is how long seven additional astronauts could remain aboard the space station before food, oxygen and other supplies ran out.

NASA had been aiming for its first post-Columbia launch as early as next fall, but Administrator Sean O'Keefe said it would now be no earlier than January 2005. Because of a new safety requirement for daylight launches in order to photograph the liftoff from multiple angles, the space agency is limited in the number of days it can send a shuttle to the station.

O'Keefe said five or six potential launch dates are available in January. "If that looks like it's forcing anybody to do anything in a way that pressures that schedule at all, we'll defer it to March if need be," he said during a visit to Orlando, Fla.

The space agency has yet to decide which shuttle - Atlantis or Discovery - will make the first post-Columbia flight and which one will be the standby. Shuttle flights, along with space station construction, have been on hold since Columbia shattered over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003.

This will be the first time the space agency has had a rescue ship waiting in the wings since the days of NASA's first space station, Skylab, in the 1970s.

NASA deputy associate administrator Michael Kostelnik said it is too soon to say whether a shuttle will be on standby for succeeding missions as well.

"I don't believe that there's an awful lot of extra training or extra things that we have to do for a rescue mission," Parsons said. "It would just be going to the international space station, docking, picking up crew, making sure that we had the appropriate hardware and different things that we needed to bring that crew on board and then return safely."

In the case of Columbia, such a rescue would have been impossible. The shuttle did not visit the space station; it was in an entirely different orbit than the station and lacked the fuel to get there.

Any shuttle sent to Columbia's aid would have had to fly in formation, and spacewalks would have been needed to transfer Columbia's seven astronauts over to the rescue ship.

The shuttle that lifts off on the first flight since Columbia will incorporate numerous changes, including improvements to the external fuel tank and the leading edges of the wings. The changes were prompted by the Columbia accident, in which a piece of foam broke off from the external tank during launch and damaged the wing, dooming the spacecraft during re-entry.

"We're certainly interested in reducing the risk," Kostelnik said. Having a shuttle on standby will provide "added robustness," he added.

As many as 35 more shuttle missions are needed to finish building the space station.

NASA recently canceled one last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and consigned it to an early death because a shuttle could not fly from Hubble to the space station in an emergency. The space agency decided it was not worth risking astronauts' lives to service the telescope.

The space agency is still struggling to come up with shuttle wing repair kits and inspection booms for astronauts in orbit. And engineers are still trying to figure out how to keep the fuel-tank foam insulation from breaking off.

"We said, 'Stop. Let's go ahead and extend the (launch) schedule and let's figure out what the right way is to go about" meeting the recommendations of the Columbia accident investigators, O'Keefe said. "We're not going to be driven by the calendar. This is going to be a milestone-driven event."

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Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

[KellyAdmirer]

Ah, they want to launch in January, the coldest month of the year, yet again. I knew it. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I hand it to NASA, they really know how to learn from their mistakes.

[snopercod]

I guess NASA reads Free Republic. This (obvious to the most casual observer) idea was posted almost a year ago on bones's thread.

[old-ager]

> January 2005

I cannot believe they are still talking about midwinter launches. They don't learn.

We should default on the stupid space station commitments.

[fedupjohn]

if you go to the shuttle web site, the first date listed is sept 12-2004

[alancarp]

From long experience, there's plenty of days in the 60's and 70's on the east coast of Florida. The minimum temp for the entire month of Jan. 2004 was 46 degrees in Cocoa, FL (close enough). Average temps were in the 60's.

[VRWC_minion]

Somehow having a rescue vehicle wouldn't make me feel more secure.

[Falcon4.0]

Yea, it's know wonder they support the "Global Warming" theory. They're stunned every time spring rolls around.

[George W. Bush]

But will we have a rescue shuttle to rescue the rescue shuttle?

[XBob]

3 - "O'Keefe said five or six potential launch dates are available in January. "

That's it NASA, plan on launching another frozen popsicle.

[XBob]

6 - "From long experience, there's plenty of days in the 60's and 70's on the east coast of Florida. The minimum temp for the entire month of Jan. 2004 was 46 degrees in Cocoa, FL (close enough). Average temps were in the 60's."

===
There are lots of days in the 80's too, and frequently some in the 20's, and on occasion in the teens. It depends on where the jet stream is going. Some years there is no 'winter', others we freeze our tails off.

Most of The thousands and thousands of acres of orange groves have been frozen off, except right by the rivers and coasts.

[quietolong]

>>>> The rescue shuttle will not necessarily be on the launch pad, but will be ready to fly to the space station within 45 to 90 days <<<<<

What rescue vehicle?
Not if your on the shuttle and have a problem!

Dam! Everyone above Tech. should be Fired!

[anymouse]

This is clearly a political ploy to placate Congress. I predicted last year that the "long pole in the tent" of getting the shuttle flying again was not technical but rather political. NASA has the challenge of regaining Congress' confidence that it can guaranty success of the next shuttle flight. Given that so many things can go wrong (and their are an endless number of Monday morning quarterbacks/space engineers willing to say that a thousand things can go wrong) it may be an impossible task, if Congressional whims cannot be satisfied.

Clearly we could have technically flown the shuttle last Spring, but not politically. All of the contingency hoops that NASA is jumping through right now is merely window dressing to placate Congress.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The rescue shuttle will not necessarily be on the launch pad, but will be ready to fly to the space station within 45 to 90 days

Quick! Name the last STS mission that had a 90 day supply of life support necessities on board.

If there were a shuttle ready to fly a rescue mission in 45 days to rescue the crew of Columbia last year, all they'd have brought home would have been corpses. I recall NASA stating that the Columbia crew would have lasted 2 more weeks with what they had on board when they poo pooed the idea of a rescue vehicle last year. What changed?

[yonif]

What they should do is modify the shuttles so that they are able to dock with the space station in an emergency and also be able to have space walks off of it in an emergency.

[Calvin Locke]

What changed?

The orbit the shuttles will have to able to attain.

The article states that 45-90 day window is what the ISS can support.

Ergo, I assume the shuttle missions must be capable reaching it...

So, what happens if NASA still kisses the rumps of the Clintonista/Algore/Nader supporters? What if John Edwards' lawyer
buddies still channel the spirits enough, so that tried and true and future products (hard foam, asbestos
o-ring joint compound, etc) can no longer be made or used without the threats of law suits?

[alancarp]

No - I lived in Orlando and Melbourne for 33 years and there was exactly ONE day in the teens. It was 18 degrees in 1980. The twenties are still rare -- and that's almost unheard of on the coast. And for Pete's sake, why is everybody thinking that NASA will launch at dawn???

Don't sweat it (no pun intended) folks -- NASA's got a whole lot more to worry about than temperature: and their post-Challenger guidelines are (I think) no launch under 45 degrees or so.

[anymouse]

Ahem. All of the remaining shuttles do have the ability to dock to the space station and the astronauts can go EVA via the space station airlock or in an emergency through the shuttle docking module's airlock. We were in the process of upgrading Columbia to be able to dock with the station and it too would have had an emergency EVA capability.

[XBob]

17 - Well, i grew up on Merritt Island, the home of the shuttle, and live there off and on, most all of my life.

The challenger was launched after enduring 7 days of off and on freezing in 1986.

Where did all the thousands and thousands of acres of frozen orange groves come from, in the 80's? Oranges have just about disappeared from Orange County. (note this requires sustained temps of 28 degrees).

One other thing, we are dealing with cryogenic fuels, hundreds of degrees below zero, and when you have the whole shuttle system, prefrozen/precooled near freezing, it doesn't take much more.

Remember those excellent pictures of the saturn launches, from the launch gantry, with all those pieces falling off, as it slowly rose in launch. That was ice.

Some years there is no freeqing. Some years there are numbers of freezes.

[New Horizon]

I believe they are assuming that the shuttle would be docked on the ISS, inspected, and then if problems were discovered the crew would live on the ISS until the rescue ship arrived.