Columbia rescue - save the space shuttle !

[Archibald]

You guys are bold and imaginative.

However, it's common even with specifically designed orbital launch vehicles to miss the target orbit by anything like 3 km in perigee/apogee and perhaps a quarter of a degree in inclination.
(snip)
This would then require the shuttle to expend almost 75 m/s of delta-v to run down each package--75 out of a total of 300, some of which has already been used.

This is a very informative post, didn't knew that. As I mentionned before, the CAIB report explicitely mentions 448 ft/s manoeuvering capability left to Columbia - roughly 150 m/s. Barely enough to chase a couple of packages, if all goes well of course. Thanks for the math once again.
(actually this is a little discouraging - manoeuvering in orbit is really not easy. A little climbing or a very little plane change eat your manoeuvering capabilities pretty quickly)
ELV packages are necessary to push the February 15 dead-line if Atlantis ever suffer a glitch - but the packages absolutely need to be guided and propelled by... something. Stay tunned.

 

[Jeeves]

Thank you, I'm very aware of what the US aerospace industry is capable of--and what it's not. The kind of system such a package would need is a 3-axis inertial measuring unit to provide input on the attitude of the package, a set of star trackers to provide position, a brain to knit that all together to fix the position of the package and decide how to navigate to the target orbit, and a thruster package to turn the brain's commands into actions, capable of both pitch/roll/yaw control and then a main maneuvering engine for orbit changes.

According to this, the Trident II carries exactly such a system.

Inertial Guidance with an additional star tracker capable of triangulating the position relative to two stars. There is even the option of receiving position updates via GPS/Navstar. Given the claimed 90m CEP over a range of >6000nm, I find it hard to believe that the orbital accuracy should be any worse than on commercial carriers ... (with a software update, of course)

 

[Glenn239]

So, if I read the consensus right here, what we have is this:

1) Plan A: Atlantis. And it's a big (109K kg) Plan A, because Plan A has by far the best chance of getting seven astronauts back alive - if in fact you can get Plan A off the ground. If you can't, their odds get a lot worse, and the fallback options sub-optimal in mutliple ways. NASA really needs to make the maximum effort to get Atlantis up there. It's their best chance.

2) Plan B: Impromptu repair. With a corollary of lightening the load, possibly, by jettisoning most of the payload. It's a poor Plan B, because Columbia doesn't really have any real repair materials, and because it involves highly risky EVA's, which Arch is already prepping us for. The CAIB report on this possibility does not fill one with confidence:



3) Plan C: Ariane emergency supply payload launched from Kourou. This seems to be the only option that would justify the burning of Columbia's scarce delta-v, and it would likely only justify it if Atlantis can't get in the game. In this case, NASA would only approve the launch if it were apparent that Atlantis simply could not be launched in time. What would be in this supply load (whatever vehicle is chosen) could be a number of things: LiOH canisters, oxygen, food, or MOOSE capsules; at least it has the payload capacity for whatever NASA has in mind.

Then it's a question of whether it has bought enough time for a true rescue mission by the delayed Atlantis, or MOOSE-ing their way back home. Frankly, MOOSE, wild as it is, seems more likely to get some back alive than any coldsoak/payload jettison repair job reentry scheme for Columbia.

This is a good summary of where this is heading.

Basically, the crew is coming back 99% of the time in one of two ways; by the Atlantis or after a jury-rigged repair. Atlantis is far and away the better choice, because no repair is assured to work. Any other option being discussed here is to reaching one or the other of those ends. The Russians are almost certainly out, for the reasons discussed. Ariane is is the best bet, with the other proposals to only relevant if this first choice can't come off for some reason. The purpose of any resupply is twofold; (1) to extend space time to that necessary to allow Atlantis to reach Columbia or (2) to provide the repair patch kit necessary to allow Columbia to re-enter if Atlantis cannot make it.

 

[Archibald]

I've tracked down a 2003 rocket flight log, and it is rather depressing. What, so little rocket launches ? where are high launch rates when you need them ?

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2003.html#log

Jan 25 Pegasus-XL SORCE 300 CC L1011 LEO "Zephyr"
Jan 30 Delta 7925-9.5 D295 GPS 2R-8 2032 CC SLC17B MTO
Feb 2 Soyuz-U 1676 Progress M47 7250 TB LC1 LEO
Feb 15 Ariane 44L L4116 Intelsat 907 4723 KO ELA2 GTO V159
Mar 11 Delta 4M D296 DSCS-3-A3 2733 CC SLC37B GTO

Soyuz is out, Delta 4 is in infancy (second flight only!).
Looks like the best option beside Ariane might that Delta 2... or Pegasus.
Interestingly the Pegasus launched the SORCE satellite into a 645 km high orbit... inclined by 40 degree ! How about that. Reprograming wouldn't have been too difficult, although I have doubt about the precision of Pegasus orbital insertion (all solid launched from an aircraft battling tailwinds... ugh)
400 kg isn't too bad, however.
Pegasus and Delta launch dates are a little too close from Columbia...

 

[Glenn239]

The drone's system would not be sufficient to act as even a basic attitude detection system/inertial measurement unit (IMU), and ground radar can only give position data. So you'd know exactly where your package is, but have no way to know which way it's pointing. That's no use at all. The communications link from a drone will be totally ill-suited, so while your idea of processing the commands on the ground has merit (if you had an IMU), the comms systems you're speccing isn't up to the job of sending that data. And, of course, you're neglecting completely adding any thrusters to turn those commands into motion of the spacecraft, so what you'd have is a fairly stupid brick.

It's the time that's the problem....

Agreed totally on that - especially the timeframe issue. I'm not saying they can pull it off. I'm wondering if they might be able to pull it off. Jeeves post suggests Trident might be able to deliver accurately without any modification. Another thing that occurs for 'off the shelf' is that the USAF has an anti-ballistic missile that has to be able to steer right into the path of an oncoming warhead. That package might be usable if stripped off the weapon. But did it exist in 2003?

In terms of which way the package is pointing, what I had in mind was that the ground station turns the 'package's' camera on to see what it is currently pointing at. Nothing fancy.

Anyways, worst case scenario is that the Columbia has to go to the package. If the package contains a custom-designed patch kit for reentry, even 50kg might be a life saver.

 

[Shevek23]

For the record, I disbelieve in the possibility of Columbia saving herself by patching the wings with whatever is handy on board. Perhaps if they were using a repair kit containing suitable materials, even then I'd be very very afraid.

So repair is an option that I might see saving lives after Atlantis arrives, buys them both more time--because it turns out Atlantis's wing is holed too.

For the record I consider that scenario a low-probability outcome; chances are Atlantis's wing will be just fine. If it isn't though, and it was judged some cargo capacity could be spared from life support and the people on the ground had the spare time to think carefully about what is needed in such a kit and installed it--Then, and only then, will we have serious repairs being made that the crews might trust their lives with.

I wouldn't want them to have to though, I'd want that third Orbiter to come and take everyone home after they install remote control stuff to bring them in on autopilot.

Perhaps a suitable repair kit, and procedures for profitably using it, can be devised over a period of months or years after this emergency is over, and launches can continue with the kits aboard, or a standby contingency plan in place to have something like a Delta on standby with the kit and a suitable set of avionics and maneuvering rockets so one can be belatedly sent up to any mission.

 

[THE OBSERVER]

When will the next update be?

 

[Athelstane]

Shevek,

For the record, I disbelieve in the possibility of Columbia saving herself by patching the wings with whatever is handy on board. Perhaps if they were using a repair kit containing suitable materials, even then I'd be very very afraid.

That certainly does seem to have been CAIB's (and NASA's) assessment. Not that that surprises. There really wasn't anything on hand suitable to the job, even for smaller hole. I don't want to say that a repair job, or jettisoning cargo, were morale-boosting make-work for the crew, but...it seems like the best they could do would be to raise Columbia's chances from virtually zero up to 10% or so (I pluck that number out of the air).

Like I said, it's a pretty ugly "Plan B." I'd rather take my chances in a MOOSE. And the MOOSE scares the heck out of me.

So repair is an option that I might see saving lives after Atlantis arrives, buys them both more time--because it turns out Atlantis's wing is holed too.

For the record I consider that scenario a low-probability outcome; chances are Atlantis's wing will be just fine.

I recall seeing an assessment of the expected frequency of expected Loss of Mission events due to debris strikes during launch, although I can't seem to lay hands on it now. But it was low enough (while still being too high for long-term orbiter operations) that you almost have to figure that they used up their bad luck on Columbia. A lethal strike on Atlantis, even using the older ET, seems unlikely.

Which isn't to say that NASA wouldn't scrutinize the heat shield tiles of Atlantis with every means at hand.

Now here's where it could get interesting for Archibald. A strike as bad as Columbia's on the next launch is pretty unlikely. But you could have smaller strikes, and those happened more often. Atlantis could reach orbit, and discover that it has one or smaller holes, whose threat might be hard to assess - something more akin to what Atlantis itself suffered on STS-27, for example (where NASA dodged a bullet). Now NASA would be in a tough spot: if the hole(s) were like that on Columbia, it's an easy decision to keep the crews in orbit, even with a slapped-together repair kit sent up in Atlantis. But what does it do with a more equivocal size hole or holes? Does it try to risk a reentry? Does it try to have the astronauts do a patch? Or do they play it safe and let them sit tight and wait for Endeavour?

 

[Archibald]

[FONT=Times, Times, serif]And now ladies and gentleman, we are entering the best part of that story. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times, Times, serif]Flight day 14 [/FONT]
[FONT=Times, Times, serif]January 29 2003 [/FONT]
[FONT=Times, Times, serif]Aboard Columbia [/FONT]
[FONT=Times, Times, serif](music: REM, E-bow the letter)
[/FONT]
"And... here we go again."

Brown and Anderson felt the orbiter airlock was rapidly becoming a second home (or a third, depending whether one counted Columbia decks and airlock separately). On the airlock panel was a water port - a space tap. The day before they had checked every corner of Columbia for hoses, valves and nozzles.
They progressed in the direction of the Provisions Stowage Assembly and carefully retrieved all the items. Anderson now had the ladder under his arm and Brown couldn't help smiling. Himself had plugged their makeshift hose into the airlock tap, and as such they looked like space firemen ready to extinct a fire.
One day payload bay trapeze artists, the other space firemen. This mission is definitively bizarre.
They would soon resume the familiar path along the orbiter payload bay door; before that however Brown had to harvest the orbiter again. He had to scavenge Columbia of some AFSRI - a barbaric acronym for what amounted to very ordinary insulation blankets. The material covered non crucial parts of the orbiter, and there was plenty of it everywhere. Brown harvested some kilograms of the thing and tucked that into a plastic bag; then he joined Anderson and together they crawled along the payload bay door.
This time the space trapeze artists added the middeck ladder to their incredible show. Much like Anderson boot the first time, the ladder metal feet had been wrapped in towels not to damage Columbia wing even more.
Using ropes and tethers and strings they solidly attached the ladder to the payload bay door. What had been once the top of a ladder emerging from the lower middeck into Columbia cockpit now laid, feet wrapped in towels, on the shuttle wing upper leading edge.

(straight of the CAIB report - ain't this crazy ? and this is only a beginning...)

Mike Anderson climbed down, Neil Armstrong style; once on the ladder last degree, he solidly tethered himself to it and literally dived under the leading edge, looking for the menacing hole they had to fill in order to survive. David Brown was now Anderson assistant, passing items to him. He had no time to realize the craziness of the situation; had he, perhaps he would have felt like Frank Poole trying to repair the damn AE-35 element on Discovery high gain antenna... no psychotic computer was waiting to kill them, fortunately.
An hour passed. Brown was not supposed to join Anderson below the wing leading edge, but events decided otherwise, and at some point he had an opportunity to go there. He couldn't resist and briefly glanced at the hole. The vision instantly burned in his mind. The panel was really a mess, the hole gaping with sharp edges and twisted bits of carbons forced inward by the shock.

To think foam can do that - a piece of foam could have killed us all. He chased that feeling out of his mind and rapidly returned to his position of Anderson assistant, up there on the ladder.
Mike Anderson, for his part, was living the most important moment in his life.
He had first stuffed an empty stowage bag into the hole, pushing it into the gapping cavity after he tried to smoothen the sharp edges there.

He then placed Laurel Clark bits of cockpit titanium into the bag, forming a (hopefully) heat resistant barrier he pushed as far as he could into Columbia wing.

Next step was the thermal protection. He grabbed a flexible bag, pushed it into the hole, and firemen, he meant, astronaut David Brown send water from the airlock. The bag inflated inside the wing and he gently pushed it deep inside, until it bumped on the titanium barrier. Over the next hour he patiently repeated the process, filling bag after bag with water until the leading edge was filled to the brim. Droplets of waters had escaped and instantly turned into beautiful crystals that shone under the sun, then vanished into the deep of space. It was an eerie, surrealistic sight.
Columbia now had its left wing edge filled with titanium and water, but the gaping hole remained.

Anderson last duty on that memorable day was to stuff into the hole the thermal blankets he had previously harvested. He gently forced them between the hole edges and the water bags behind. The AFSRI stood absolutely no chance against the re-entry inferno; it would burn and melt like chocolate on a hot metal plate. Yet every fraction of second the furious plasma would lost burning the blanket would have Columbia closer from Earth and a possible crew bailout.
He stuffed a last AFSRI blanket and then the job was over.
For a pair of seconds Michael Philip Anderson, born on Christmas day 1959 in Plattsburgh, New York, looked at the repair that might save himself and his companions lives.
Despite his best efforts the repair looked really crude. That thing don't stand a remote chance against the re-entry plasma fury. He shook his head, said a little prayer, and climbed back the ladder in the direction of David Brown.

 

[Bahamut-255]

Despite his best efforts the repair looked really crude. That thing don't stand a remote chance against the re-entry plasma fury. He shook his head, said a little prayer, and climbed back the ladder in the direction of David Brown.

That won't matter. What will matter is can it last long enough to get the Columbia's altitude low enough to permit a bailout. If it can do at least that much, then their chances of survival are up.

All of which assumes that they don't get Atlantis up in time, and you can bet that NASA will be making sure that they don't have to try and use Columbia for Re-entry.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

That won't matter. What will matter is can it last long enough to get the Columbia's altitude low enough to permit a bailout. If it can do at least that much, then their chances of survival are up.

Err... not really. If the wing survives through the fire ball, its probably going to survive to the ground. By the time its safe to bail out, the thermal and aerodynamic stresses will have eased WAY down.

 

[Glenn239]

For the record, I disbelieve in the possibility of Columbia saving herself by patching the wings with whatever is handy on board. Perhaps if they were using a repair kit containing suitable materials, even then I'd be very very afraid.

Atlantis would be first choice, a repair presumably the second only if option one can't happen. A quick review online suggests that the shuttle commenced its decent at around mach 24.5 and broke up at mach 18.1, possibly due to a manual overcorrection while battling uncontrolled yaw. That performance was with no repair or modified reentry profile.

Someone who knows about heat shielding might be able to outline the emergency options. I'm picturing more Apollo style material with some sort of special mounting saddle rather than fiddling around with regular shuttle tiles.

Reentry mods presumably would be to bias the orientation towards the intact right wing, and to figure out the optimal decent angle for the patch.

 

[Orville_third]

Is there any chance they have duct tape on board? (That could help as well. (And, yes, I am being serious.)

 

[RazeByFire]

Is there any chance they have duct tape on board? (That could help as well. (And, yes, I am being serious.)

Unfortunately, the most versatile tool ever devised by man does have a weakness; It loses it's sticky when exposed to vacuum.

 

[Shevek23]

...I'm picturing more Apollo style material with some sort of special mounting saddle rather than fiddling around with regular shuttle tiles.

Reentry mods presumably would be to bias the orientation towards the intact right wing, and to figure out the optimal decent angle for the patch.

What you have to picture, in a scenario where Atlantis can't get there on time, is they have aboard what they have. Archibald has already told us what that was. It's not Apollo style material!

It is, sort of, in the sense that the plan is to fall back on ablative properties instead of relying on the material holding all the way down. Hence all that water. I believe that when Tsiolovsky, who I believe is the first savant to try to seriously envision the requirements of a safe reentry, outlined his model for a returning capsule, it was supposed to be metal cooled by evaporating water. Water is pretty good stuff--not nearly as good as the ablative plastics used in the ballistic capsule phase of reentry vehicles, but a lot of water can do the job.

The idea is, the heat will eat up the material, but the process of vaporizing it will carry away a lot of the heat and thus the structural materials that will inevitably be somewhat exposed will not reach the same critical temperatures and thus retain some strength and integrity, and that will limit the damage.

The question is, will it limit it sufficiently, along with lightening the load and careful adjustments of attitude to favor the undamaged wing?

If Atlantis comes up but also turns out to have a hole (a very low-probability outcome) they might have brought some more effective stuff for a better repair that allows reentry with much better odds.

Aside from being distracting make-work for the stranded astronauts, one chance in ten is better than zero chances in a million. If they have to come in on their own, maybe they win the lottery, and at least everyone tried, no one closed their eyes and sang "la, la, nothing bad is happening and if it is, que sera sera there's nothing we could have done." But I'd bet they'd die if they had to try it. Maybe better materials, designed to patch the hole, could raise their odds from one in ten to say one in three, or even two in three.

Columbia does not have better materials. Reentry with the patch job they could do is not plan B, it's more like plan C. Plan B would be sending up the Ariane with survival goods to buy time for Atlantis to finally get there. Reentry of Columbia, without a much improved patch job, is the last resort and only slightly better than just opening the hatches and suiciding that way.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The other thing is that shuttle launches, as most rockets these days, dont go up on the first opportunity. Theres often some glitch that causes a delay. Sometimes an hour or two, sometimes days or weeks. The thing is, launch to meet another shuttle has the same instantaneous launch window that launch to the iss has. So even a 15 minute hold is too much, and the launch attempt has to be scrubbed. They CANNOT count on Atlantis getting up on time. Yes, the probability of Atlantis having the same catestrophic damage is very low, but firstly its not zero, and secondly that assumes they can get up in time.

 

[RazeByFire]

I wonder is painting the ET would do anything for the foam. The first few Shuttle launches had a white ET, IIRC. Might be worth it for Atlantis to give it just a bit more safety margin in regard to foam impacts.

 

[THE OBSERVER]

I wonder is painting the ET would do anything for the foam. The first few Shuttle launches had a white ET, IIRC. Might be worth it for Atlantis to give it just a bit more safety margin in regard to foam impacts.

I don't know why NASA technicians take all the foam off.

 

[e of pi]

I don't know why NASA technicians take all the foam off.

Are you asking why they don't remove it? If so, it's because it'd be impossible to keep the tank cool during loading and flight. If liquid hydrogen gets warmer than 250 degrees C below zero (-425 F!), it boils off.

 

[ANTIcarrot]

Are you asking why they don't remove it? If so, it's because it'd be impossible to keep the tank cool during loading and flight. If liquid hydrogen gets warmer than 250 degrees C below zero (-425 F!), it boils off.

And if they stuck the foam on the inside, like they did on the Saturn V, you'd have huge chunks of ice forming on the outside, which could then fall off and severely damage the space shuttle's TPS. (This is what is sometimes known as irony.) The SSME's are also far too fussy to cope with foam being sucked inside, unlike the cruder but more durable engines of the Apollo era.