-Well, good morning, everybody.
I'd like to welcome you to the preflight briefings for STS-103,
the third servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Let me give you the briefing the lineup for the day.
First, of course, is the traditional mission overview.
We're combining the briefing on space walks with that as well.
That will last roughly about 2 hours.
At 10 a.m., we will switch to NASA Headquarters
for a briefing on the telescope payload and science.
And that'll occur at 10 Central, 11 Eastern,
and then we'll have the NASA TV "Video File,"
and then this afternoon at 1 o'clock
the STS-103 crew press conference.
Okay, first up, the mission overview.
To my right, Linda Ham is the lead flight director.
Linda has been a flight director since 1991,
and she was in the propulsion systems section,
mission-operations director prior to that.
To her right is Keith Johnson.
He's the lead EVA officer for STS-103.
He's worked in EVA section since 1990.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Linda
and let her take it from there.
-Good morning.
As if this mission didn't hold
enough excitement and importance,
we are particularly honored to be
the last human spaceflight in this millennium.
Humans have been flying space for 38 1/2 years
now which has extended our reach far out into the universe.
We have accomplished many great things during these 4 decades,
and with the Discovery's flight this December,
we'll have sent 390 different humans into space
representing 30 different nations.
It is fitting with the multinational crew
that we have on board Discovery to close this millennium
and open another with the International Space Station
and the fact that we'll be representing many nations
with the people that will be working
and flying onboard the International Space Station.
Another ironic occurrence that is surrounding our flight
is that the Mars Polar Lander
is scheduled near the south pole of the Red Planet in December.
Our mission serves to enhance the life
and capability of the Hubble Space Telescope
which is a crown jewel of NASA's great observatories,
and at the same time, we have a robotic explorer
extending the reach of our discoveries at the Red Planet.
This is ironic because we have our eyes
and hopes on having humans go to Mars in the next century.
As you know, Discovery was scheduled to roll
to the launchpad earlier this morning, about 2 a.m.
This was delayed, however,
because yesterday during some of our standard testing at KSC,
one of the engineers noted that they had lost command capability
to the range safety cable
that supports the solid-rocket boosters.
They did find some crimping of the wire
and decided that they go ahead and replace that cable.
So the impact of this work on the remainder of the schedule
is still open and being assessed.
Right now, they are assessing a rollout date of Saturday,
this Saturday, maybe early morning.
We're not sure whether it will impact the launch date or not.
As far as the wiring inspection status,
the repairs and protection have been completed on Discovery.
The vehicle is in excellent shape now.
They did find about 57 exposed conductors,
all of which have been fixed.
We were scheduled to launch in October.
We delayed to December to put all the wiring repairs in place.
This flight, it will be the third servicing mission
for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Back in April of 1990 on the same vehicle,
Discovery, we deployed the telescope,
so it's been in operation for nearly 10 years now.
We've had two previous servicing mission.
One was STS-61 in 1993, and the second was STS-82 in 1997
where we have upgraded some of the science
instruments on board,
done some maintenance and also some repairs.
The launch of the third servicing mission
was actually scheduled for mid-2000.
However, in February of this year,
we decided to move this launch earlier,
and that was due to onboard gyro failures on the telescope.
There are six gyros on board the telescope.
Three of them are needed to point the telescope,
and in January of this year, we had a third one fail,
leaving three still remaining which lets the telescope operate
in its normal pointing mode, still continuing to do science.
However, if it were to have another gyro failure,
it would go into automatic safety
and go into sunpoint attitude.
Because of that, we did decide to launch the mission early.
We had about a 8-month template from February to October,
so we picked up a lot of the software in the same vehicle
that we flew the last servicing mission on
and also had a extremely smooth training
for over the last 8 months.
So we were able to accomplish all the training that we needed
and all the preparations.
The EVA crew members had been named early,
so they were able to get all the training
that they needed for the space walks.
In fact, they had completed a number of runs out in the pool
prior to us announcing the earlier launch date
which really helped them in all the training.
We also have an experienced flight-control team
in the Mission Control Center, and, of course, the Goddard team
is extremely experienced, so we were able to pull off
getting ready for flight in 8 months.
Launch date is sometime early December.
If we launch on the 6th, the launch time would be
about 2:36 Eastern, and we do have a table
if you need it of launch times for each day.
Every day we slip after the 6th
is about 31-minute-earlier launch time,
so we can give you that data if you need it.
Launch window is about 42 minutes
and it protects for external tank,
where it's going to land.
Mission duration is a 10-day mission
with 2 extension days
that we always cover for weather-extension days
or any problems that we have on the shuttle.
We have four scheduled EVAs to complete the tasks.
We also have one that we book keep that's unscheduled in case
we need it for deploy of the telescope.
Our altitude that we insert into
is about 317 nautical miles prior to OMS-2 burn.
The rendezvous is in about 325-by-319
which is where the telescope is now.
That's based on our latest data.
Inclination of the flight is 28 1/2 degrees,
and our primary landing site, of course, is KSC,
and if we launch on the 6th, we'd land about the 15th.
Now for the flight crew.
I think we have a photo of the flight crew.
Commander is Curt Brown.
He's flown six times before, three as a commander.
Last flight he flew, STS-95, was about a year ago,
and that was about the same inclination, same altitude,
so he's got a lot of experience.
The pilot is Scott Kelly.
This is his first flight.
Steve Smith is the payload commander.
This is his second flight.
He's also EV 1,
so he'll be going out in the first and third EVAs.
He did do three space walks on the last servicing mission
also for Hubble Space Telescope.
John Grunsfeld is EV 2.
He's flown twice before,
and he'll be going out on the first
and third also with Steve.
Mike Foale is EV three.
This is his fifth spaceflight.
He's done two space walks before.
One was Russian.
He spent 4 months on the Russian Mir
and has 160 days in space, so he's got a lot of experience.
Claude Nicollier is from the European Space Agency.
He's EV 4.
He'll be going out with Mike on the second and fourth day.
He's flown three times before,
and he was the arm operator on the first servicing mission.
Jean-Francois Clervoy is also from the European Space Agency,
and he's flown twice before.
For flight directors, we have myself.
I am lead, and we'll be doing orbit
one which we'll be there during the EVAs rendezvous and deploy.
Brian Austin is over at two.
Jeff Hanley is planning.
This is his first flight as flight director.
However, he has worked previous servicing missions
as our lead payload officer,
so he is very familiar with the payload
and Wayne Hale is ASC and entry.
For an overview of what we're doing on the flight days on,
of course, flight day 1 we're going to launch.
Flight day 2 will be check outs of the space suits,
the space support equipment that we have in the payload bay
that we're carrying up for Hubble
and also the arm check out.
Flight day 3 rendezvous which is pretty typical
and also berthing of the telescope.
Flight day 4 through 7 are the EVAs,
and we'll go into more detail on what we're doing
on each particular day in a few minutes here.
Flight day 8 is scheduled deploy.
Flight day 9, we have some off-duty time for the crew,
and we're also carrying a global pointing system.
We're doing some tests on two of those that we're carrying.
Flight day 10 will be the normal preps for entry,
including cabin stow,
the reaction control system hot fire,
flight control system check out, and flight day 11 will be entry.
Okay, now we have a video that we'd like to show you.
Okay, there's the patch for the mission.
And inside we're carrying up some hardware.
The first piece you see here
is the orbital replacement unit carrier.
It's got a number of boxes.
The first one that you see
where will carry the replacement gyros among other things.
The second will carry the new computer
and will return the old computer.
The third box they're pointing to here
will carry the Fine Guidance Sensor
in that box which is about the size of a telephone booth.
And the fourth one shown here carries a backup computer,
backup gyros and also some of the MLI repair
that we'll be carrying up to do on the third and fourth EVAs.
This is a flight-support system,
and you see the berthing and position system
that will be up when the telescope is berthed.
This thing can rotate,
and it can also pivot with the telescope on it.
That post that you just saw will be installed on the first EVA,
helps alleviate some of the loads
on the telescope during ops,
so that the solar rays don't get as much flows
as the rest of the telescope, of course.
Here is what the telescope will look like once it's berthed.
The solar arrays will be in this position
from may of the EVA activities.
Okay, here's another picture.
We'll show you where,
basically where all the replacement units are.
This is -V3 side that you're looking at.
You're looking at the fixed-head star trackers on the bottom
and the high-gain antenna up near the top.
First thing and the priority would be replacing the gyros
which are housed in the right-center units
that you show here, six gyros,
two each, two each of these right sensor units,
and that's the first thing we'll do, first EVA.
After that, we'll do the voltage and temperature
improvement kits.
There are six batteries, and each one will get --
And they also label the bays here, bay twos and threes.
Second EVA, we will replace the old computer
with the advanced computer in bay one.
We also have the OCE,
which is actually used for the Fine Guidance Sensor.
We're showing it now
because it's on this side of the telescope
even though we won't replace that until the third EVA.
The morning of the second EVA,
we will replace the Fine Guidance Sensor,
number two up here.
We've done one of those on previous servicing mission
which was number one on the other flight.
We also will replace the S band single-access transmitter,
and in that same bay, we have the solid-state recorder
which will replace one of the older tape recorders we have.
We've also done that on a previous mission.
There were three reel-to-reel,
and now we have, after this flight,
we'll have two of the solid-state recorders.
The third EVA will start repairing the MLI
with the New Outer Blanket Layers that go over the bay.
And on the fourth EVA, we'll be doing the Shield/Shell
Replacement Fabric which are big sheets
that are rolled down the side of the telescope.
We call it SSRF for short.
Okay, the rendezvous, again,
this is scheduled for flight day 3.
In real life, we don't come this fast to the telescope,
but this gives you an idea of how we will approach.
We are doing approaching along the R-bar
which is really what we've been using for all the Space Station
docking missions with the Mir and the Space Station missions,
the same type of approach.
We also used the same type of approach
on the last servicing mission.
We come up close, grapple with the RMS
and slowly maneuver the Hubble Space Telescope
over to the flight service structure.
And we'll set it down, and once we have it, we will latch.
There are three latches that'll be latched,
and then we'll connect the umbilical.
This is some live footage
from the last servicing mission of retrieval.
Here you see the arm
actually getting the grapple fixture here.
It's a good shot, then maneuvering the telescope
over to put in place in the payload bay.
Here you see the umbilical, the main umbilical connect.
Your turn. -Okay.
On the first EVA,
our tasks are to replace the right sensor units.
On STS-61, Story Musgrave and Jeff Hoffman
opened up the same bay that we'll be going into.
Jeff Hoffman was on the arm.
Story Musgrave was the free-floater
and positioned himself inside.
He's changing our RSU number two.
We'll be replacing all three of them.
Our first task is to retrieve RSU number two.
John Grunsfeld is on the arm.
Steve Smith is the free-floater.
He'll hand him the new box, take out the old.
And it's a tight fit in there.
When he takes the RSU out, he'll stow it in a bag
so that it doesn't bounce around.
John Grunsfeld will take a power tool
and drive the bolts that hold the box in place.
When that's done, he goes down,
stows the old box and retrieves the new one,
and we repeat the process for all three RSUs.
After we're done with that task, Steve Smith will get on the arm,
and he'll install the voltage,
the temperature improvement kits on the batteries.
You see one big box there, but it's actually three batteries.
We'll install three VIKs in that bay,
and we'll repeat the process for the other set of batteries.
On the second EVA, our first task is the advanced computer.
On STS-61, we installed the coprocessor
which enhanced the DF-224 computer.
In this shot, you see Kathy Thornton driving the bolts.
In our task, we will remove both the DF-224 and the coprocessor,
and that's done by Mike Foale while he's on the arm.
Once that box is removed,
we'll install some connector converters
and then put in the new computer,
the 486 computer and hook it up.
After we've completed the 486,
we move on to the Fine Guidance Sensor.
Claude Nicollier gets on the arm.
On STS-82, we did the same task on Fine Guidance
Sensor number one.
We open up the bay, remove the old
Fine Guidance Sensor. It's a pretty big box.
It's about 500 pounds.
And it's got a pick-off mirror at the end
that we have to be very careful of.
Once that's removed,
Claude Nicollier positions it and temporarily stows it
on an aft fixture on our ORU carrier.
And that's out over the port wing.
He then maneuvers forward and retrieves the new
Fine Guidance Sensor number two, and down at the bottom,
you'll see the pick-off mirror cover.
That protects the mirror
while they're positioning the box for insertion.
And he rotates it to get it in the right orientation
to insert it into the telescope,
aligns it, and Mike Foale, in a PFR,
takes off the pick-off mirror cover,
and Claude Nicollier inserts the Fine Guidance
Sensor into the telescope.
Once that's done, they go get the old box,
lift it off its temporary stowage fixture,
maneuver forward again.
He'll have to rotate it because of the orientation
that it came out of the telescope
and how it was stowed
and insert it into the FGS scientific instrument
protective enclosure, and it's ready to come home.
Again, on STS-82, you see some footage here of Joe
Tanner inserting a Fine Guidance Sensor into the telescope.
That means that after this mission,
we'll have two good
Fine Guidance Sensors that have the corrective optics.
On our third EVA, as Linda mentioned,
we're installing optical control electronics enhancement kit.
Well, the enhancement kit was installed on STS-82,
and for this mission all we have to do is change
a little bit of the wiring,
disconnect one of the connectors from the box
and hook it up to the enhancement kit.
After that, we move over to bay five
where we have the solid-state recorder,
and the S band single-access transmitter.
Here you see the SSAT being removed from the door.
It will be handed off,
and the new box will be installed.
After that's complete, we turn around
and do the solid-state recorder
which is the lower of the two boxes that you see right there.
The upper box was replaced on the previous mission.
For the New Outer Blanket Layer, we take the old MLI off
on some of the bays and replace it
with a rigid sheet that is the thermal protection
and that corrects for the MLI damage
that we've seen on a previous mission.
On our final EVA, we continue our MLI repair
by installing the Shield Shell Replacement Fabric.
This is a lot like wallpapering.
We have rolls of MLI material that the crew unrolls and clips
along the way to various structures
and Velcroes to itself, and we position that.
We cover a good section of the telescope.
-Okay, and here is some animation
of what the deploy will look like.
The solar arrays will be as shown at 90.
The high-gain antennas will be deployed,
and once we're out on the air, we will open aperture door.
Of course before we deploy,
Goddard goes through all kinds of commanding to verify
that the normal computers and backup computers
all function properly.
We will do a separation maneuver after deploy.
Here's some footage again from the previous servicing mission
where that's ungrapple of the telescope
and moving the arm away.
You can see the solar arrays again at 90
and high-gain antenna deployed.
Here is a view from the aft window.
So it'll be very similar, and it will be
in the same configuration in this deploy in this flight.
Okay, for mission priorities for this flight,
since the gyros have had some problems,
our main priority is to fix those or replace those.
So the six gyros again contained three rate sensing units,
so the priority is replacing the three RSUs.
Minimum success for this flight
is to have five operational gyros
when we leave, four which are newly installed,
and we can do that just by replacing
RSU number two and three, and that's the order we go in.
We do two, three, then one because both the gyros in RSU
one are still functional,
although we do want to replace them.
They are the oldest ones on the vehicle.
They've been flying since we launched,
so that would be the minimum success criteria.
For full success, we want the six operational gyros.
We also want the voltage improvement kits
which are what we do right after the RSUs,
the new computer and the Fine Guidance Sensor.
So if we get through the first two EVAs as planned,
then we will have what we consider full success.
The next priority would be getting the S band
single-access transmitter replaced,
then the solid-state recorder.
After that, most of the priorities
are doing the MLI repair.
First would be the bays five through 10 repair,
followed by the Shield Shell Replacement Fabric.
When we originally planned this mission,
we weren't even going to do some of these tasks,
but we had enough consumables on board
to add another day to the flight, so we did so.
Since we're up there, we thought we would take advantage of it
and do as much as we could.
So we have a list of additional tasks that, if we have time,
we will try to get out of the way this flight
so that we don't have to do them next flight.
With that, I'll hand it over to Keith.
He's got some tools here that he'd like to show you.
-Okay.
I brought along some mock-ups to show you basically the size
and some of the work that the crew has to do.
This is a mock-up of the right sensor unit.
You can see it's kind of banged up.
This is one of the water mock-ups that the crew members
to practice changing out in our Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
This box has a handhold on it for the crew to hold.
There are two connectors that they disconnect
and reconnect on the new box, and there are three bolts
that they have to drive to hold it in place.
So the crew members practice inserting this into the mock-ups
that we have in the water tank.
After they've completed that task,
the second task on our first EVA
is the voltage temperature improvement kit.
This is one of the six that we will install.
Again, this is a mock-up,
but basically it's an electronics box
that the crew members disconnect a connector
from the bottom of the battery and hook this in line,
and it corrects for the problems that we have with the batteries.
On our third EVA,
we replace the S band single-access transmitter,
and that box is a box that looks like this.
This is our replacement box,
and you can see that there are some wires hanging off on this.
The problem that we have with this task
is that we are changing out coax connectors,
and the coax connectors are quite similar to the ones
that you have on the back of your television set.
So as you know, they're very tiny,
and with a gloved hand, that's very difficult to do.
So because of that, we've added jumpers that allow the connector
to be made away from the doors.
You may recall from the video that you saw.
That's right up against the door.
Also, we have two other connectors that you can see here
and here that the crew members have to mate as well.
The other problem that we have with this particular task
is the original box was not to be changed out EVA
which means that the connectors that hold this box to the door
are down at the lower surface,
and they're hard to get a tool on.
And also those bolts that hold this, there are eight of them,
are noncaptive which means if we take those bolts out,
they could float away,
and we don't want to add any extra debris.
So because of that, on the new box we have bolts
that are captive that will --
When we drive them in, they're easy to maintain and to hold.
Because those bolts are noncaptive,
we had to develop a special tool
that allows us to capture those bolts when we drive them out.
And basically, it's a screwdriver
that has a special capture feature
which is these little claws right here.
We slide that under the bolt head and the washer
and then push in and capture the bolt
and then drive it the rest of the way out.
After that, we stow the bolt on a special bracket
so we maintain control of that bolt the whole time.
As I mentioned, the coax connectors are very tiny,
and they're hard to do with a gloved hand,
so the crew members have special tools
that allow them to drive those in and out.
The other tool that I brought along for the third EVA,
I mentioned the New Outer Blanket Layer.
To hold those in place, we have special plugs
that the crew members will insert and open up,
and it drives these over center,
and that's what holds the New Outer Blanket Layer to the base.
On the fourth EVA, we're installing
the Shield Shell Replacement Fabric,
and this is a sample of the actual flight material
that we'll be using,
and it has a scrim on the back, and it's highly reflective.
And that is what's going to hold the existing
MLI against the surface of the telescope
and then protect the outside of the telescope.
And the last tool the I brought --
Well, I shouldn't say the last tool.
I have one more after this.
This is the pistol-grip tool.
This was first developed for the second servicing mission,
and now it is kind of the workhorse
of space station assembly.
It is a computerized tool that allows us to control the torque
and the speed and the number of turns
that we have for all the bolts that we're driving.
And the final tool that I have to show today
is the lube applicator.
One of the things that we talked about
is the fact that on STS-82,
we had problems driving the latches open,
and because of that, we are applying lubricant
to those bolts when we try and drive them out.
This tool has a special nozzle that fits over the bolt head,
and the crews members will, at each of the bolts
that they're driving, open up and squeeze
a small amount of lubricant, brake-coat lubricant on the bolt
and then drive it out,
and that helps hopefully the problem
that we had with the binding.
And after that, I'll turn it back over to Linda.
-Okay.
So our goal here on the servicing mission
is help HST operational until about 2010.
There are two additional servicing missions planned.
One would be -- One of the science instruments
on that would be the Advanced Camera.
They're hoping to launch about mid-2001,
and then about 2 years later
there would be another servicing mission.
That's all I had.
-Okay, thanks.
We're ready for questions,
and I think we've got some other centers also.
As usual, if I don't say your name, please state
it for everybody listening in.
Let's start up here on front with Marcia
from Associated Press.
-Marcia from Associated Press.
First question for Linda.
Since you're using software from previous Hubble missions,
I'm wondering just in case this mission slips into next year,
the Y2K-compatibility issue and where that all stands.
-Okay. We were concerned with the same thing,
and what we had to go back and do --
The software called OI26B.
The last flight we flew and what we were certified
for for Y2K was OI27.
We went back and onboard software
wasn't a concern at all with Y2K.
It was the tools that we use to build the software
that we had to make sure were compatible,
so we had to go back and verify
that all this was going to be Y2K compatible.
Another thing that we did in the Mission Control Center
software was we stepped up to a new load
there that is fully Y2K compatible,
so we did ensure that with the ground software
and the onboard software were going to be compatible.
-So that's over with? -Yes.
-That's all taken care of, and a couple EVA questions.
Is there a backup EVA guy on board
just in case one of the four gets sick and something happens,
and how much suits are you flying?
-We're flying four EMUs for this mission,
and each of the crew members are cross-trained so that
if one of them has a problem or can't go EVA,
someone else could fill in, and they've all been
100 percent cross-trained on all of the tasks.
-[ Speaks indistinctly ] -No.
No, these four. -Anybody else?
Let's go back here to Bill.
-Bill Harwood with CBS, a couple of quick ones for me.
What is the threat that the voltage regulator kits correct?
I mean, I'm confused because I was under the understanding
you can get into some eclipse scenarios
and you get some low power,
and you get a really bad problem if that happens,
but I'm not clear as to what the consequences are.
-It's concerned with as the batteries have aged
that they may overcharge and overtemp.
So once they get these kits on there,
they have less of concern or they won't have a concern
with overtemping when they charge the batteries.
It's particularly important to have the VIKs installed
when we get new solar arrays which are planned
for future servicing missions but less of a concern now,
but we do want to get those on there
so that when they do charge, they don't overheat.
So they switch the voltage at which they'll quit charging.
-Thanks, and an MLI question. I know inside the bay
where they're going to do the RSU work,
you mentioned tight clearances.
What is the concern with flaking insulation both inside as well
as outside as you're messing around with these things
because I remember on the last mission
that was obviously an issue, and you obviously
don't want stuff floating around in the optical path,
but what's the concern there?
-Well, that's exactly right.
One of the things that we do is we want to mitigate
the amount of debris that we cause
before we open up the bays because inside the telescope
is the highest concern for the optical equipment inside.
Because of that, we train very extensively on avoiding
all of the material inside.
There is a handrail on each of the RSU bays
that they hold onto, but we've trained very carefully
not to impact any of the MLI inside the RSU bay.
-Also, if you notice, we put the MLI repair tasks
on the third and fourth EVA after the aft shrouds close.
-Yeah. -Just a quick follow-up
but how brittle do y'all think the stuff is?
I mean, in other words, if you accidentally brushed against it,
do you expect a cloud of this stuff
to be released or big chunks, or what's the concern?
-We believe that the material that's inside is brittle,
but because we've trained to avoid it,
we hope to not find out exactly how brittle that is.
The stuff that's outside, the material that's outside,
we feel will be very brittle,
but we're capable of covering any contingency.
If it's a big mess, we're going to cover it up
with the New Outer Blanket Layer that we're installing, so...
-Mark Carreau from the Houston Chronicle.
I had a couple questions.
First, will there be any reboost this time?
-There is no reboost planned so that we'll have more capability
to get there on the next servicing mission, 2001,
so we're not going to reboost.
-Okay and could you just review what the last date of the month
you would launch this mission on?
Is that under review as well?
I think it was the 14th before,
or are you sticking with that or...
-The last I heard it was the 14th.
I don't think it's been an update.
-Hi, Todd Halvorson of space.com.
For Keith, I was wondering if you could characterize
the degree of difficulty of these EVAs
and perhaps compare them to previous servicing missions
or the ones down the line.
-Well, I would say that a lot of these tasks have been performed
on the previous servicing missions,
and the previous missions proved how difficult the tasks were,
but the crew is capable of doing that,
and they're extensively trained.
Our next servicing mission after this, 3-B,
will prove to be a bit more difficult
because we're doing a lot of tasks
that we haven't seen before, but this is fairly
straightforward on the tasks that they're doing.
-And for Linda, could you give us an idea
of what your options are down at KSC
in terms of the flow through the VAB
and out at the pad and when you think
you'll be able to come up with a launch date?
-I don't know when they're going to decide on the launch date,
but I know they're looking for trying to roll out
to the launchpad on Saturday.
It is still open as to whether we could launch on the 6th
or whether we might delay.
We had a couple, I know a couple days
were built in, holidays and things that we could use
if we needed to, so I don't know when they're
going to make a decision or set the launch date.
Do you? -No.
James just gave me a note that said the target
is still the 6th, so... Miles.
-What is the problem with the S band transmitter
which is currently on there?
-Well, from what I understand, it has completely died,
so they can't get any of the data through at this point.
-How much does that hinder their ability
to do science without that?
They have multiple paths back.
-There are two S band transmitters.
This is the second of the two,
and the first one is working correctly.
It just has to have all the data go through it.
-So they haven't lost any capability right now.
They just don't want to have a redundant unit.
-And if you could explain a little better for us
the issue which is requiring you
to put this additional thermal protection on there.
Was this something that just wasn't fully understood
when Hubble was launched, or was this anticipated
that you'd have to do some wallpapering later on?
-Well, they've determined that there are thermal limits
on each of the bays, and some of the bays
are getting close to that thermal limit overheating
because the MLI, when it peels back,
it allows the Sun to warm up that bay.
Because of that, on some of the bays
we are taking the existing MLI off
and putting a new blanket on it.
On some of the bays,
we are just completely covering it over again.
On the bay number one, where the computer is,
it will not be warm enough in that bay
because the heat produced by the 486 computer
is not as great as the coproccesor in DF-224.
-And that computer which is going on board
is what level of computer?
Do you call it advanced? What level of computer is it?
-Well, it's a 486 computer,
and now that we're going into the 21st century,
it kind of is ironic to out a 486 computer in there,
but it is a lot of capacity
and as much as the telescope can handle.
-Let me remind folks.
A lot of the questions you're asking,
the next briefers
from headquarters are going to be able
to give you a lot more detail on all of that.
Any other questions here? All right.
Let's catch this up front,
and then we'll come back to you, Mark.
-Tom Keller from the BBC. I might have missed something,
but I thought right at the beginning you said
you had a window up to October this year for launch,
and then you said that you were able delay until December.
-When we originally planned to move the flight up earlier,
the original launch date was October 14th.
But now that we've delayed the six weeks to December,
we actually will launch all the way through December 14th.
-So it doesn't create
any additional problems to delay until December?
-No, none. -Okay.
Let's grab Mark Carreau.
-Mark Carreau from the Houston Chronicle for Keith Johnson.
Can you just review how many tools
you're taking for this task,
and do a lot of these have any sort of application
for space station assembly as well,
or are they pretty much specialized tools
just for the Hubble that have been around for some years?
-Well, the tools, we're flying about 280 tools,
and there are a lot of redundant tools that we are flying.
Several of the tools have been specifically designed
for the tasks that we're doing,
but their applications can be used for Space Station
as far as capturing bolts that are noncaptive.
In most cases because of the designs that we've had
and what we've learned from Hubble Space Telescope
servicing, Space Station has designed in changes
that allows us to do the tasks more easily.
-Go ahead.
-Yeah, contingency sort of question,
and I know that they're going to be ground
commanding all of the hardware for aliveness test
and functional test as you install them,
but can you maybe just give us kind of a feel
for what happens if for example, you know, you get the RSUs in,
you go on to the VIKs and then RSU tests bad
and you've got to do some replacement work?
How much flexibility in those four EVAs
to reorder stuff on the fly?
I know you got a backup RSU, I guess,
and a backup computer onboard?
Anyway, can you just talk about that a little bit?
-We have plenty of time for contingencies.
We try to do an aliveness test right after we connect
the boxes, and we should know in fairly
short order whether that works or not,
so we would have plenty of time to replace the gyros.
Everything, the VIK functional test
and the RSU functional test,
actually, for that night before the next EVA so we should know,
you know, before the morning whether we need to readjust
what we're doing in the time line.
The things that we're doing on the fourth EVA are really --
Optional tasks is what we call them.
They're things that we'd like to do to get out of the way
for the next servicing mission,
so it's kind of a great way to get ahead for that.
So if we do run over and need to do --
take more time or do more replacements
that feed into the next days,
we're still going to be in good shape by the end of the mission.
On the new computer, we'll do, of course,
the aliveness test right after
we install it which tests one of the three strings.
They want two of three strings to be functional
before we'll go.
But again, we may even know
whether that one string is functional
before we even get to the Fine Guidance Sensor,
so we've got sufficient time
to get the critical things done in these 4 days.
-And also to add to that, each of our tasks are modular
so that they can move to the next day
or move a day ahead.
-That's what I was wondering. -Yeah.
-Go ahead, Todd. -Todd Halvorson, space.com,
for one or both of you.
I was wondering if you could put in perspective
this 8-month launch campaign
and how that compares to the normal way of doing business
and how that might actually spin off
into International Space Station assembly,
whether this exercise helps you prepare for contingencies
that might come up during assembly?
-The 8-month template for this flight
was fairly easy to do for us, and the reason for that
was because we have flown missions like this before,
and we were able to, you know, pick up some of our software
off the shelf to go the same inclination
and adjust the I-loads to get to the right altitude.
It was easy to do.
Plus, the EVA crew members were partway through their training
already because they had been named earlier.
We've got a very experienced crew,
and again, the flight controllers
are very experienced, and so are the Goddard folks.
I think we will be able to do it
for some of the Space Station missions
because, again, we're going the same inclination.
It's the same kind of mission.
The tasks that they do on orbit will be different,
so we'd have to get that training done in 8 months,
but I think it's feasible.
We're right now already cutting down to a 12-month
template for flights anyway, so it'll be 4 months shorter,
and we should be able to do that if we need to.
-Okay. Let's go to Kennedy Space Center,
and we'll come back here, so think of some more questions.
KSC, go ahead.
-This is Phil Chen for Keith.
What size HUDs do you have for each of the four crew members,
and why four EMUs this time rather than three?
Did you not be able to find people the right size
to be able to mix and match?
-Well, we are flying three large HUDs and one extra large HUD,
and in this particular mission, we found that we had
the resources to carry an additional suit.
And for the redundancy, we decided
that it was worthwhile to fly that fourth suit.
We have backup options for each of the suits,
and we had planned on resizing in between each EVAs
when we had three.
The four just makes it easier.
We don't have to do that. -Okay, who's the extra large,
and can he squeeze into a large if necessary,
or is he out of his HUD is out?
-The extra-large is Steve Smith, and he can fit in a large HUD.
He has trained in a large HUD before,
and he's capable of doing that.
-This is Mike Cabbage with the Orlando Sentinel.
I have a question for Keith, also.
Could review in a little bit of detail again
what you think the two or three toughest tasks the space walkers
are going to have on this flight are
and give a little bit of detail
about what makes those especially challenging?
-Well, to start off with,
our first EVA with the right sensor units,
we've done it before,
but it is a tight fit to get into that bay,
and in that case,
Steve Smith will be positioned by John Grunsfeld.
He'll hold his feet and position him when he's getting in there.
The actual change out of the box is not that difficult,
but getting into the position is more difficult.
As far as the voltage thermal improvement kits,
that's a very simple task, disconnecting from the battery
and then putting the VIK in line.
The S band single-access transmitter
is a very difficult task
because of how tiny the coax connectors are and the fact
that the eight bolts that hold it in place are noncaptive,
so that's a fairly difficult task to do.
The Fine Guidance Sensor is a task that we've done before,
and the crew is very comfortable changing that out as well
as the computer.
The problem with the computer is that the connectors
are on the left side of the box.
We have a clearance with the backpack and the box
that is attached to the door to the crew member's left,
and it's Mike Foale who's changing that out.
He kind of has to do it with one eye while he's disconnecting
and reconnecting to that,
but he's trained extensively on that,
and he's very comfortable with it.
Other than that, the tasks are moderately difficult,
but the crew is very well trained
to do each and every task.
-This is Phil Chen again.
For the S band transceiver, what type of coax is that,
and what type of connectors are on the end?
I couldn't really tell from the video view.
-Well, I'm sure exactly the name that the coax is.
I know it's the kind that you have on the back of the TV.
It's a single line, and we have three of them on the box.
-Is it an actual F connector that's virtually identical
to the one that would go on a TV set?
Besides, the S band transceiver, are there any parts of which
are second-generation Hubble serviceables,
ones which were not originally intended to be serviced
but were made serviceable through these additions
and these clever tools you have?
-Well, the rest of the tasks are straightforward,
and they were designed to be changeable EVA.
With the addition of the New Outer Blanket Layer,
that was kind of a new design.
We're using existing holes that are vent holes on the door,
and we've designed special plugs
that hold those New Outer Blanket Layers in place.
-And I guess for Linda. If for some reason
you're in a MDF scenario, a relatively mild one,
consumable emitted or something like that,
I assume you'd just go ahead and perform as many tasks
as you can in order before you have to return?
-That's correct.
We already planned and put in the rules
that if we had a single EVA say
due to consumables that we would do the gyros
and the voltage improvement kits since they're the number one
and two priority but if we had one EVA.
If we had two in addition to that, we'd do the computer
and we would do the Fine Guidance Sensor,
and it just so happens that's the same order we're doing them,
so it would be the first two EVAs.
-Any indication of how much prop margin you have?
I know Curt is pretty good on doing rendezvous,
but how much excess or negative prop margin you have going in?
-I don't remember the exact numbers,
but they were around, I want to say,
500 or 600 in the forward and about that in the aft total,
maybe a little less than that in the aft,
but that protects everything,
everything that we put in what we call priority table,
a lot of waning opportunities over 3 days
plus a mean round of usage, a normal round of the usage
so we think we'll be in good shape.
That's from propulsive,
and we've got plenty of cryo for power.
We've got lots of margin there.
-Well, could you do a second rendezvous if for some reason
you had to back out during the final, after the TI burn?
-If we had to do a TI delaying,
we'd only delay for a rev or maybe two revs.
We probably could go back in.
It would depend on where you broke out.
Say you were real close to grapple
and had to break out for some reason.
You would have to see how far out you needed to go
and how you would re-rendezvous.
We'd just have to wait and see.
-In terms of cryos and other supplies,
could you add on a fifth or even a sixth EVA
if for some reason that became necessary?
-We scheduled four.
We book keep another one in case
we need to for deploy which we will keep.
That's the fifth.
And what we've got now with LIO and everything,
we probably could have an extra day
if we had the propulsive consumables,
also, so there's a chance that we could add another one.
-Okay. That's all from KSC, and we're back here.
Let's grab some last follow-ups. Bill.
-Bill Hardwood, again. Linda, just to follow that,
but you also keep one for shuttle related problems, right?
-Yes. -So, I mean, his question,
I'm assuming, is, "What's the maximum EVAs you could stage
if you had to including a shuttle EVA?"
So you're saying that's seven? I mean...
-The one that we book keep for the shuttle contingency
is now what we call double book kept,
so we take the consumables
out of what we would normally protect for cabin leak,
so you can have one or the other not the two failures.
So we kind of keep that one separate from the five
that we have enough consumables for,
and if we're not talking propellant,
we actually probably have enough on board
and enough EMU suit consumables also for another one,
so we probably have enough for six putting aside
the contingency for the orbiter.
-Go ahead, Mark. Sorry.
-Mark Carreau, Houston Chronicle for Keith, again.
Could you be a little more descriptive
about the two different types of insulation
you'll be applying, kind of what they're made out of
and actually how each is bonded to the surface of the telescope?
-Okay, the New Outer Blanket Layer
that we're installing on the third EVA
is a rigid sheet of metal that is kind of like
a cookie-pan material that's rigid,
that fits snugly over the bays five through 10 and also one.
The material, the Shield Shell Replacement Fabric,
is the fabric that I showed you here,
and it is flexible,
and it unrolls, and we clip it in place.
We have special lanyards that attach
to hardware along the way, and also when we attach
these side-by-side, kind of like wallpaper,
and there are Velcro pieces that we attach.
-Let's come up here and get Marcia on the front row.
-Marcia Dunn, AP, a couple questions for Keith.
How many hours in the water tank have the four guys spent,
and how does that compare to the previous mission?
I'm going to assume it doesn't even come close
to the first servicing mission in terms of time spent training,
and does this extra month and a half or 2 months in delay,
how much extra comfort,
training, you know, does that give you for flight?
And you could both answer that, maybe.
-Well, we've done, specific to this training,
we've done 44 neutrally buoyant labs tests.
They are 6-hour runs.
On some cases, we have three crew members in the water
performing the tasks.
We had the benefit of the delay.
It gave us additional time, but the crew was comfortable
and prepared for the October 14th launch.
We did two runs on October 4th and 5th,
and after those runs, everybody felt
that we were ready to fly if we had to the next week.
Of course, we weren't going to.
But it was a compressed training flow.
We had the opportunity to get in the water when we needed to.
The facility, neutrally buoyant lab,
allows us to get in the water when we needed to,
so we have sufficient training in the shortened template.
-It's pretty typical, too, to have about
10 times more hours in the pool than you do in space.
So that's what it ends up being, even more than that.
-How does that compare to the previous servicing missions?
You know, however, this 44 lab tests breaks down,
is that about what the last crew had in the end?
-It's getting close.
With the additional month of training
that we had, we came close to that ratio.
What we did for that mission was we had it spread out
over a longer period of time.
This, we kind of compressed it prior to flight.
-And for the wallpapering and the shields and everything,
is that meant to stay on for good,
or is that just a stop-gap measure until the next mission
where you might come up with a better plan?
-Oh, this is installed for good.
-Okay, and the bolt lubricant,
is that meant for any sticky bolt,
or is that just meant for one particular unit or...
I wasn't clear on... -Okay.
We're inserting the lubricant on the four bolts on the RSU bay
and the three bolts on the Fine Guidance Sensor bay nominally,
and we will not be inserting any lubricant
on any of the other bolts
until the next servicing mission.
-What if it needs it?
-If it needs it, we have work-arounds.
We can increase the torque on the bolt,
and we have a go to fail those bolts
because we have latch-repair kits
if something gets bound up
while we're trying to open it up.
-Go ahead, Miles.
-Keith, have you trained for contingencies
if the doors don't close properly?
-Yes.
We've trained pretty extensively on that.
Goddard Space Flight Center developed a trainer
for the crew members to use,
an aft shroud door trainer specifically for the problem
that we had on STS-61 where the doors wouldn't close properly.
With this trainer, we have a flightlike door
that allows us to train on the exact alignment and closure,
so they are very thoroughly prepared for that.
-Just to refresh my memory,
did you figure out what the problem was?
Was it some fort of thermal condition
which caused them to get out of shape or something?
-Well, again, Goddard has done some extensive work
on their interpretation of the problem,
and it could be any number of factors.
We don't know specifically what it is,
but we believe we've trained extensively on
any possible contingency to get the door closed.
-Okay, Tom. -Yeah, Tom Keller from the BBC.
Can you just clarify a couple of things?
One is 44 times 6-hour runs, can you just tell me
how many hours per astronaut that would be roughly?
-Well, off the top of my head, I'd have to say
I can't tell you exactly what that comes out to.
Again, there are some cases
where we have three crew members in the water,
and there were some runs where we only have two.
We do keep pretty extensive records,
but off the top of my head,
I can't tell you what that number is.
-And the other thing is, just to clarify on the Y2K,
does this mean that if you had to delay until next year,
you're confident there wouldn't be a problem?
-That's right. We've done all the testing,
and we feel comfortable with the software.
-Grab Todd there.
-Todd Halvorson with space.com.
I guess for Linda, I wonder if you can just talk
about the importance of the wiring inspections
and the decision that was made
to stand down the flight temporarily.
And also, it seems to me
that you guys have been running into little things here
and there during this flow, drill bits, range-safety cables,
and I'm wondering if you feel at all snakebit?
-Oh.
First, as you know, safety is our number one priority,
so the slip from October to December
is really only about a 6-week slip
which really isn't that much in the big picture.
The changes that they've done to protect the wiring
and they've changed a lot of procedures
on how they'll do work in the orbiter
and how they will position the work platforms in order
to avoid breaking any wires or having any openings later.
They've installed flexible plastic tubing around the wires
where they thought they needed it,
and they put smooth
or put coating over rough edges near the wiring
so that they wouldn't have a rubbing concern,
so I think that overall,
we're probably in a lot better shape,
and the integrity of the vehicle is excellent right now.
There is a team that is reviewing the shuttle
maintenance and refurbishment procedures, as you know,
and the report will be out before we fly this flight.
So I think it was a good plan for us to delay the 6 or 7 weeks
to get the wiring in place.
The other things that we saw was, like,
the tip of the drill bit that broke off,
and they found between the two face plates,
there was no credible way for this bit to escape the area,
and even if it, they didn't think it would do any hazard.
Of course, we did decide to replace this at the pad.
That engine --
This came to light at the rollout review
which we held I believe it was last week.
It's not uncommon to find things,
and it's because we have these checks
and balances in place and meetings
like the rollout review to find these,
so that is when we decided that we would go ahead
and replace it, so I just think that was,
you know, a typical, standard thing.
There's a lot of things that we'll find at rollout reviews
and other meetings where we decide to go back
and replace it.
-Mark.
-Mark Carreau from the Houston Chronicle, also for Linda Ham.
I have a couple questions.
Have any of the procedures
or the communication calls during ascent,
has any of that changed as a result of the last flight to,
I don't know, to make things clearer or crisper for the crew,
or was all of that reviewed and found to be fine?
-We really haven't made any significant changes.
All the calls will be the same.
I think we're going to eliminate one
which was a low-performance call that we make dependent
on whether we see three-sigma performance or not,
and it's just for something like another failure,
if you had a hydraulic lock up in the main engine
where the crew would shut it down at 23K or not.
We decided that rather than --
We'd only on a low-performance day before.
Now we'll do it on any given day
because it was hard for us to --
We couldn't predict on that flight
that we would have a slightly lower performance
than we expected, so we'll just delete that call,
and if they had one of those failures
where they should shut the engine down at 23K,
we'll do it, and it was really not very significant at all.
The rest of the calls will be the same.
-Okay and just to revisit the December 14th cutoff date,
I'm not sure I understand why that is.
If you don't have Y2K concerns, I thought maybe that had
played into that decision either on the ground,
but could you clarify that at all,
or is just strictly an issue of stopping for the year?
I'm just not certain I understand.
-I think it's a holiday.
I think it reflects protecting the holidays,
getting the vehicle back on the ground in the OPF.
-There was a reason, and, again, we'll have to find out for you,
but they wanted to be on the ground by the 28th.
If you launch the 14th and 10 days
plus 2 would put you 28.
I can't recall what that is, but we can find out.
-Do we have any other questions?
I've got one that Jim Slade,
a colleague of y'all's, called in.
He wasn't able to be here, and his question is,
"If one of the three remaining gyros fails,
are there any rendezvous
difficulties associated with that
if the telescope is in safe mode?"
-We have assessed additional gyro failures.
We've actually assessed more than even one failure.
We went two failures deep to see what we will do
and have documented all that in the flight rules.
If we have one additional failure of a gyro,
then the telescope when we do the rendezvous and the grapple
will be in hardware sunpoint,
and there really are no more difficulties.
We will know the condition of the telescope.
We'll know what to expect,
and we will have told the crew that,
and we also know that it still has extremely accurate pointing,
so we don't anticipate any problems with that.
-Okay. With that, I'll thank you guys,
and the next briefing coming up
about 1 hour from now from NASA Headquarters.
Of course, you'll be able to participate from here,
and that will be a telescope, payload and science briefing.
Thanks a lot.