The process of bringing a vehicle to a rest at the International Space Station was never fast, and the maiden flight of a new vehicle was no time to get aggressive. While he briefed his team at the Oklahoma City control center (MCC-OKC), Jean-Pierre had stressed that challenge. In the history of the station, only five types of vehicles had ever served it, and three of hose--Progress, Soyuz, and Shuttle--had extensive flight heritage to fall back on. He emphasized that in his book, it’d be marked as a success for the day if they simply got to the 200m Keep-Out Sphere (KOS). Others outside of RpK and NASA waited with higher expectations. The live stream for the event started just before midnight, almost three hours in advance of the planned berthing attempt, but even before it began progress reports were already being tweeted out and posted to forums. I’d taken advantage of being on spring break to make plans to do little all night except read, refresh ARN’s forums, and follow along on the NASA TV stream. As the timer to the webcast ticked down, I watched the discussion flow past a few pages of my Kindle book at a time.
ARN Forums: Rocketplane Kistler: RPK-D1 Berthing Attempt 1 Update: Page (1)...
”Excalibur99 (03/10/10 11:50:54 PM)“ said:
I wish people would stop misconstruing me. I’m just saying that this isn’t anything as new as they’re making out. They want this to be a big deal that they’re a “private company”, but does the fact that they don’t have shareholders really make them that different? It’s still all the usual suspects involved--LockMart built their tanks, ATK did all their assembly here at Michoud and does a lot of their operations. RpK’s going to be operating the K-1 for station, but is that really any different than NASA buying a launch of Shuttle from United Space Alliance? They’re just splitting the management costs differently! “New era in spaceflight,” really. Give me a break…
”PressToLaunch (03/10/2010 11:51:13 PM)” said:
PressToLaunch: 4 km, entering approach ellipse
”Downton (03/10/2010 11:51:13 PM)” said:
Excalibur, I think you’re deliberately erasing the difference. It’s not about who their shareholders are and whether they’re a government owned contractor or not, it’s that the model really is different. NASA may be their main customer right now, but they’re not the only one who’re going to be buying a launch from them--look at OrbComm. The K-1 would be just as great a vehicle to support any private station like Bigelow as it is to support ISS, and unlike with USA they wouldn’t need to get NASA’s permission and support to fly it. That is a major difference--USA was specifically formed to handle Shuttle operations for NASA and couldn’t handle flying the vehicle without the support JSC and other NASA centers provide. RpK is more like how launch services have traditionally been handled, but now including orbital vehicle operations as well--they can serve NASA, but they can also serve customers without NASA support. That’s a real difference.
”PressToLaunch (03/10/10 11:54:17 PM)“ said:
2 km, webcast starting in a few minutes
”RocketNerd1701 (03/10/10 11:55:40 PM)“ said:
”Excalibur99 (03/10/10 11:56:26 PM)“ said:
It might be real, but it’s meaningless unless they actually get more customers, otherwise it’s just NASA bailing them out of bankruptcy on an ongoing basis or exactly the kind of subsidy you were saying ULA and USA need to stay around. Look at SpaceHab, and look where they are today--you can’t, they’re gone. Just because you can put a payload on the station or a can in the Shuttle cargo bay doesn’t mean you’ll get any other business, and it means you’re just as dependent on NASA as all these articles about RpK seem to want to make “OldSpace” out to be. The fanboys need to take a break, both whenever they talk up RpK and for Elon’s bunch too. And will Bigelow or others really get the funding to launch their own stations for K-1 to serve? You’ll excuse me if I doubt it. It’s taken Kistler two or three miracles to get this far, and that only with ATK’s help. Where’s Bigelow’s OldSpace angel investor? I thought not...he’ll be forced to see reality soon enough.
”ArnoldH (03/10/10 11:58:20 PM)” said:
Folks, we’re going to be coming up on the webcast soon and this is the updates thread. Can you put away the handbags and start a splinter thread for this discussion before we need to take official mod notice of it?
Chuckling, I went back to my book. Soon enough, the webcast started up, and then the game of trying to monitor chat, the stream, and my book all at once got even more complicated. My mom had work in the morning, so I was trying to find a balance on the stream volume that’d let me catch the intermittent snatches of comm loop chatter without being loud when the commenters spoke up. What ended up happening was zoning out into my book for the most part as the footage from the station mostly just showed the Earth below with the promise that the spacecraft was out there in the void approaching somewhere. Every few minutes, a bit of loop chatter would crackle in or the public affairs officer would add something, and I’d look up startled and have to read back the ARN forum posts to see what I’d missed.
Often, this ended up with me just staring at the feed from the station, watching the world go by underneath. Soon after the webcast started, the K-1 made its ADV-3 burn, moving it in from a range of just over a kilometer. Soon after, the crew called “tally ho”--the first sight of the ship from the station it approached. It was still invisible against the clouds and sea below on the daylight passes, but as orbital dawn and dusk flashed past, the cameras intermittently captured the speck of light in the distance. With the ability for light from the spacecraft to reach the station’s cameras, the far more sophisticated detectors built into the Kurs radar and TriDAR lidar systems making up the Kistler proximity operations and docking system began to register the station. However, it wasn’t entirely trouble-free.
”PressToLaunch (03/11/10 12:14:47 AM)” said:
800m, still working the K-PODS disagreement. It sounds like TriDAR and Kurs are both working, but disagreeing on position relative to station? Something about solar radiation?
”Downton (03/11/10 12:17:35 AM)” said:
PAO is explaining--reflections off the station arrays might be interfering with TriDAR. They’re proceeding in with Kurs as the primary system, TriDAR is in monitor only for this demo. Showing the benefits of the Shuttle testing and the Kurs flight heritage.
In the slow-motion ballet of approaching ISS, there was time to work through these issues--indeed, it was the point of the demo. Hanging 800 meters from the space station was a distance a human could easily comprehend--a few city blocks, or the length from my dorm room to my class buildings, a distance even I could cover in seven to ten minutes. Compared to the staggering distances and speeds traveled to reach it, the fact that it would take another two hours to finish crossing this distance seemed faintly ridiculous. For the teams involved, however, every additional meter of closure was hard won.
”Downton (03/11/10 12:45:23)” said:
It sounds like they’re still not liking the TriDAR data calibration, so they’re taking it out of the loop and moving in on Kurs only. Kurs is looking dead on. Still heading in from 250m, the crew is ready to command the retreat when they reach 230m to test that. The PAO is talking about the command arrangements--talking about the new Robotics Workstation they’re going to install in the Cupola next month, but right now it’s not ready. Noguchi is in the Cupola to take pictures, but they’re commanding from the current RWS in Node 2 today. It’ll be nice in the future to have a view out the window at the approaching spacecraft while they work on it!
”PressToLaunch (03/11/10 12:47:05 AM)” said:
Here’s a really good view of the Node 2 command station on the stream, crew still only just barely able to see the vehicle on the camera feeds.
”ArnoldH (03/11/10 12:47:35 AM)” said:
Retreat command sent! Spacecraft replied, and it’s backing off.
”PressToLaunch (03/11/10 12:49:02 AM)” said:
Closest approach was 224m, it sounds like--expected delay in command processing. Backing off to 250m and holding.
The K-1 hung off the edge of the station’s Keep Out Sphere, waiting patiently while the ground control teams processed the data. Minutes slipped past as the loop quieted down, the PAO occasionally working to fill the time, and I turned back to my book. Minutes turned into pages and then into chapters as the hour passed, the house quieting down and lights outside my room fading to just the streetlights. A trip downstairs for a refill on water and ice startled the dogs, one already awake and alert looking for the deer that haunted our flowers in the wee hours, the other asleep until the refrigerator door closing woke her up. I apologized with a head scratch peace offering, and headed back upstairs. It was almost forty-five minutes after the retreat test before they resumed the approach, satisfied with the data as the slow process proceeded with every care. The next hold point was 30m, an approach of 220m which would take half an hour.
The change this time was notable, and my book lay forgotten as I watched the stream, enraptured for minutes on end. In the stream’s external camera views, the K-1 had been visible intermittently throughout the approach and retreat tests, the flared “skirt” and engine bell distinguishable when the cream colored TPS wasn’t hiding it against the cloud cover below. Now, suddenly, the K-1 resolved up out of orbital night as a massive form. The K-1’s upper stage was small, by the scales of rocket bodies, but it was massive by the scale of ISS visiting vehicles. The four Progress and Soyuz currently on station were barely a third its size. As the stage hung at 30m, it felt more like the Space Shuttle in scale than any of the rest of the ISS servicing fleet--indeed it was half the Shuttle’s length.
As the ground crew waited for the permission to cross the last few dozen meters to the capture point, the stage drifted motionless, seemingly close enough to touch. Suddenly, the K-1 was a real, tangible vehicle--almost moreso than in the pre-launch photographs, which had all tried to capture the larger bulk of the full rocket. It felt enormous, and the PAO pointed out it was indeed the size of a bus--though the pressurized compartment in the nose was only the size of a generous walk-in closet. Watching at home, I could make out the clear line where the new thermal blankets on the sidewall of the ISS Pressurized Cargo Module met the previously-flown ones on the side of the rocket body of the OV as a crisp line between a toasted cream and sharp white. Though the aft thrusters were hidden in the shelter of the flare, the forward thruster bank could be seen just in front of the line, mounted as part of the PCM. Behind the opened forward heat shield hatch, the berthing port was flanked by the approach radar and the flashing formation light. As others and I looked at stills from the stream to try and pick out and label each newly visible detail, the K-1 waited out one last half-orbit of darkness. As orbital dawn broke, bringing good comms and proper lighting for the final maneuvers, all the tests were complete and the go was given for the big ship to come into its berth. At last, with a pulse of thrusters visibly jetting into the night, the rocket as big as any of the main station modules eased into position until it came to a halt, nearly blotting out the camera view. At the astronauts’ command, the robotic arm reached out for the grapple fixture.
”ArnoldH (03/11/10 02:24:23 AM)” said:
All polling go for capture. SSRMS at 5m
”PressToLaunch (03/11/10 02:29:50 AM)” said:
End effector view, 2m left.
”RocketNerd1701 (03/11/10 02:30:03 AM)” said:
Looks like it’s really close now!
”Downton (03/11/10 02:30:15 AM)” said:
”Downton (03/11/10 02:31:10 AM)” said:
Capture! Crew reports good grab.
”ArnoldH (03/11/10 02:31:12 AM)” said:
Ha! “Houston, please inform OKC we found something of theirs floating by, but we grabbed it for them.”
”ArnoldH (03/11/10 02:33:57 AM)” said:
MCC-OKC and MCC-H both reporting good capture, confirming SSRMS end effector latches all showing locked.
As the webcast continued, I looked up at the clock, debating staying up for the final berthing. It’d be another 40 minutes, taking things all the way past three in the morning. I should be asleep but I was almost through with my book anyway. It wasn’t like I’d be any more likely to end up falling asleep if I turned off the webcast anyway, so I just put leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on my bed, and kept watching the stream while the astronauts swung the module around, eased it into place, and drove home the bolts. The K-1, at long last, had arrived at ISS.