WI: A Space Shuttle Post-Columbia Accident Suffers Heatshield Damage

[Jadebenn]

So I believe the post-Columbia procedure for all flights but the two Hubble Missions was to essentially abort to the ISS if heatshield damage was detected. What I'm curious about is what would happen to the orbiter and astronauts in such a scenario.

Would they keep the orbiter attached to the station indefinitely, essentially acting as an unplanned extension to the space station? Would the crew simply hang out on the ISS until another Soyuz or shuttle came up to get them?

Finally: Would it be possible that the damaged orbiter would be eventually patched-up in orbit, or left on the ISS for the rest of the station's life? What would be necessary to enable the orbiter's safe return to the Earth? I'd imagine modifications would need to be made in-orbit to allow it to be controlled and landed remotely, for one. I don't see a scenario where NASA lets astronauts ride a "patched-up" orbiter on the trip back down to Earth. Still, is that a realistic possibility?

 

[Workable Goblin]

So I believe the post-Columbia procedure for all flights but the two Hubble Missions was to essentially abort to the ISS if heatshield damage was detected. What I'm curious about is what would happen to the orbiter and astronauts in such a scenario.

Would they keep the orbiter attached to the station indefinitely, essentially acting as an unplanned extension to the space station? Would the crew simply hang out on the ISS until another Soyuz or shuttle came up to get them?

They would try to land the Shuttle. The vehicle was really...really...really not meant for indefinite-duration space missions, and there would be hazards from, for example, the hypergolics stored on board for the OMS pods and APUs. So it would definitely get flown back when possible.

As for the crew, they would go down in Soyuzes, just as if there was an emergency on Station, although probably on a somewhat slower schedule since there's no immediate danger and shoving them in the on-station Soyuzes would leave the station crew without any way to evacuate in the event of a subsequent problem on Station (Shuttle getting banged up and Station having a must-evacuate problem before additional escape capsules could be launched would be a nightmare scenario...)

Finally: Would it be possible that the damaged orbiter would be eventually patched-up in orbit, or left on the ISS for the rest of the station's life? What would be necessary to enable the orbiter's safe return to the Earth? I'd imagine modifications would need to be made in-orbit to allow it to be controlled and landed remotely, for one. I don't see a scenario where NASA lets astronauts ride a "patched-up" orbiter on the trip back down to Earth. Still, is that a realistic possibility?

As part of the return to flight process, a procedure was developed using a very long cable to allow the Shuttle to reenter and land without a crew onboard, bypassing the (previously) manual-only actions that had to be performed to carry out a successful landing. That was the planned method of potentially salvaging a damaged Orbiter after evacuating the crew to Station, since obviously there would then be no crew risk.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

The next Shuttle mission would have flown with a reduced crew (max of 4 crew) and an MPLM with consumables for the ISS. The Shuttle crew would stay on the ISS until the next Shuttle brings them down. I think the Orbiter can only dock on the end of the USOS so the damaged Orbiter would have to undock first, so it would probably already have reentered before the rescue mission goes up.