Tag Archives: STS 61 C

15 Days in January – Day 5

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

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(NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of the 15 days in January 1986 leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster. The character’s account is fictional; however, the details of weather and Space Shuttle events are based on known historical facts.)

Titusville, Florida
Saturday, January 18, 1986
High Temp: 70° F  Low Temp: 61° F

STS-61C Columbia lands at night at Edwards AFB

Today was a good news/bad news day. The good news was that Columbia is back on Earth. The bad news that it didn’t come home. It’s sitting at Edwards AFB, which means it will add about a week to the turnaround time before it flies again. We just can’t seem to catch a break. The landing took place after dark after they waited as long as they could for a KSC landing attempt.

Our next launch is still scheduled for January 23, and I still don’t know how we can make it. I’m not sure anyone will be ready, but there are a bunch of smart people in air-conditioned rooms that must know more than the rest of us. Of course, Challenger won’t fly if we are not ready.

To give you an idea of the schedule we are looking at, here are the launches scheduled for this year:

1986 Space Transportation System (STS) Missions

  • January 12 (KSC) – Columbia (STS-61C) – Deploying a satellite and experiments (Completed)
  • January 24 (KSC) – Challenger (STS-51L) – Deploying satellites and experiments
  • March 6 (KSC) – Columbia (STS-61E) – Astro 1 mission
  • May 15  (KSC) – Challenger (STS-61F) – Deployment of Ulysses satellite
  • May 20 (KSC) – Atlantis (STS-61G) – Deployment of Galileo satellite
  • June 24 (KSC) – Columbia (STS-61H) – Deployment of 3 satellites
  • July 1 (Vandenberg) – Discovery (STS-62A) – Dept. of Defense mission
  • July 22 (KSC) – Challenger (STS-61M) – Deployment of TDRS-4 satellite
  • August 18 (KSC) – Atlantis (STS-61J) – Deployment of Hubble Space Telescope satellite
  • September 4 (Vandenberg) – Discovery (STS-61M) – Dept. of Defense mission
  • September 27 (KSC) – Challenger (STS-61I) – Deployment of Intelsat-4 satellite
  • September 29 (Vandenberg) – Discovery (STS-62B) – Dept. of Defense mission
  • October 1 (KSC) – Columbia (STS-61K) – Mission information not released
  • November 1 (KSC) – Atlantis (STS-61L) – Mission information not released
  • December (Vandenberg?) – Challenger (STS-71B) – Dept. of Defense mission

One down, 14 to go. 1986 is going to be a big year for NASA!

15 Days in January – Day 4

17 Tuesday Jan 2012

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(NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of the 15 days in January 1986 leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster. The character’s account is fictional; however, the details of weather and Space Shuttle events are based on known historical facts.)

Titusville, Florida
Friday, January 17, 1986
High Temp: 72° F  Low Temp: 62° F

STS-61C launches a satellite from cargo bay

For the second day in a row weather caused Mission Control to cancel Columbia’s landing. Weather was better here, but it was cloudy both here and at Edwards. They really have to land it here at KSC if we have any hope of getting the program back on schedule.

I wonder if the suits in the control room are being too cautious. The pilot has some of the most sophisticated navigation tools available in the world and he doesn’t even actually fly the Orbiter until just before the approach and landing. He just monitors the computers, and if he wanted the computers could land it for him. Visibility should not be a reason to wave off a landing.

My guess is the caution is due to the VIP on board. Nobody wants to make a bad call when a politician life is at stake and I’m sure he’s perfectly happy to have extra time in space. Still, we’re not running a tourism service and I think everyone knows Columbia has to get its wheels back on the ground as quickly as possible.

STS-61C Columbia-Representative Bill Nelson peels grapefruit

We are scheduled for 15 missions this year and no one really expects that is possible. I would guess that we could do 12 missions, but even that will not be possible if we keep having these delays. Our next launch is scheduled for next Thursday, but with the delays, I don’t see how we can be ready. 

This year is when we ramp up the program to go from exploring to occupying space. Orbiting outposts that are living and working environments are next in America’s advancement into to space. From there, bases on the Moon and Mars are not far behind. The Space Transportation System (STS) program will pave the way and I’m excited to be a part of it. We just have to get our ‘sea legs’ on launches and landings and it will all fall into place. We have 24 successful STS missions (assuming Columbia ever comes home) and the next launch will be our 25th. Space travel may never be routine, but we’re starting to understand what it will take to be the space port for the world.

15 Days in January – Day 3

16 Monday Jan 2012

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(NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of the 15 days in January 1986 leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster. The character’s account is fictional; however, the details of weather and Space Shuttle events are based on known historical facts.)

Titusville, Florida
Thursday, January 16, 1986
High Temp: 69° F  Low Temp: 52° F

They waved off the Columbia landing today. Weather conditions here and at the backup landing site at Edwards AFB were unacceptable. It was drizzly here today and cloudy in California. Personally, I think that landing at Edwards should only be an emergency. When an Orbiter lands at Edwards it costs over $1.5 million dollars to get it back here and we lose a week in turnaround time. If we can’t land because the weather at Kennedy Space Center we could wait for several days and still save money and time on the recovery of the Orbiter.

Atlantis (STS-61-B) was the last mission and it landed at Edwards on October 7th and it was October 12th before it was back here. Once it got back here we had the fastest turn around in the history of the program. Atlantis was out to the launch pad by November 12th. Had it landed here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) it would have been ready to go by November 7th. The only reason to land at Edwards is if the next launch for that vehicle will be from Vandenberg AFB, and our first launch from there isn’t going to happen until July.

STS-61-B Atlantis landing at Edwards on October, 7, 1985

Of course, delays have their costs, too. Every time we scrub a landing or launch we are wasting money because we all get paid whether the Orbiter comes or goes,…or doesn’t. Still, if we are going to prove the value of the program we need to be able to get the Orbiters back in the air as quickly as possible, and that means landing at KSC.

Fortunately, tomorrow will be warmer and hopefully dryer. It should be a good day for a landing. Columbia has been a pain in the neck. It should have been up and down by Christmas and now were almost a month later and still waiting for it to land. Once Columbia is back home we are scheduled to launch Challenger next week.  

15 Days in January – Day 2

15 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Fiction, Government, History, Public Relations, Science, Space, US History

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(NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of the 15 days in January 1986 leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster. The character’s account is fictional; however, the details of weather and Space Shuttle events are based on known historical facts.)

Titusville, Florida
Wednesday, January 15, 1986
High Temp: 64° F  Low Temp: 43° F

STS-61-C Launch on January 12, 1986

STS-61-C, or Columbia is coming back tomorrow, pending good weather. We should have Challenger ready for launch a week after Columbia lands. It was scheduled for launch at 2:42 PM EST on the 22nd, but when they had to scrub the December launch of Columbia, they moved Challenger’s launch back a day to the 23rd.

Columbia’s main mission was to launch a communications satellite and that was a success. They have had a bunch of experiments, most of them are in the Shuttle bay, but they will have everything wrapped up for tomorrow’s landing.

Personally, I’ll be glad to have Representative Bill Nelson back on the ground. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to have the people who champion our budget in Congress to take the risk of flying in space. One mistake and we could lose all our financial support and the STS program would be over. I guess the PR people must know what they are doing.

Representative Bill Nelson with on board experiment

The next mission (STS-51-L) is also going to be a high-profile flight. We have the first ‘official’ civilian on the Challenger trip. She is our first ‘teacher-in-space.’ I wonder if this is going to be a regular thing from here on out. I understand we need the public’s support and I guess this is the best way to get it. Still, I think people just need to accept that our leadership in space makes us technologically superior here on Earth. Let us do our jobs at NASA and our country will reap the benefits in advanced scientific and engineering knowledge.

We had some fog today, but this morning was a little warmer. Yesterday’s low was too close to freezing for Florida. Our farmers don’t like it when we get that cold. Hopefully, we’ve had our cold snap for this winter.

15 Days in January – Day 1

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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(NOTE: The following is a fictionalized account of the 15 days in January 1986 leading up to the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster. The character’s account is fictional; however, the details of weather and Space Shuttle events are based on known historical facts.)

Titusville, Florida
Tuesday, January 14, 1986
High Temp: 63° F  Low Temp: 37° F

STS 61 C Crew - Columbia - Launched January 12, 1986

At least we have Columbia in the air. These delays are frustrating. Columbia was supposed to be launched on December 18th and since then launch attempts on December 19th, twice on January 6th, and January 7th, 9th, and 10th were all scrubbed for one reason or another. Finally, we got them off Sunday. At least the launch went well, but we have Challenger waiting in the wings.

Columbia is supposed to come back on this Friday, the 17th, but that’s going to push back the launch of the Challenger. There’s talk of bringing back Columbia early so we can move up the Challenger launch. Hopefully, we’ll get the official word tomorrow.

Charlie Bolden is the pilot on the Columbia on this flight. This is his first flight. Coincidentally, he’s from Columbia, South Carolina. He was the first guy we put in the slidewire basket to test the launch tower escape system. We didn’t kill him, which is at least on measure that it must work. 

We’ve also got a politician on board the Columbia. Representative Bill Nelson is one of the payload specialists. God I hope nothing goes wrong on this flight. That would put a quick end to the program. For all my complaining I have to say it’s pretty exciting to be part of the launch pad team right now. There’s a lot of pressure, but we’re doing something no one else in the world can do and I wouldn’t trade my job to anyone.

It was chilly this morning. It felt like we were in Denver. I didn’t take my jacket off until late this afternoon. Tomorrow should be warmer and maybe we can get back to more normal temperatures.