New answers tagged space-shuttle
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In general: if there are any compilers still extant for HAL/S, then they are under the care and responsibility of the United Space Alliance, which has published a specification. There are no HAL/S available as e.g. open source.
More specifically: the question can not completely be answered, as the request for a compiler always includes a target ...
4
It was done at the Johnson Space Center, in the regular training facilities.
The Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS), for example, (the one I am familiar with) had the capability to run each simulator in "red" (classified) or "black" (unclassified) mode. To go from a classified mission's "training load" to an unclassified training load was called a "color ...
13
It is indeed difficult to find information on this building. As you can see in the photo below, it was part of a massive test facility at Marshall Space Flight Center:
(Overview of MSFC; Mike Jetzer/heroicrelics.org)
Some details of how the test stand worked can be found in the nomination form for the US National Register of Historic Places Inventory:
...
4
3 looks like Loral O'Hara:
https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/candidates
It looks like Wikipedia doesn't have the ASCANs up to date.
19
I can answer the Shuttle part.
The test in question was the Mated Vertical Ground Vibration Test (MVGVT). Here's how the stack looked in the test stand.
Five configurations were tested
Liftoff
First stage (SRBs attached)
early, mid, and late 2nd stage
For the launch testing, the SRBs stood on hydrodynamic supports which "provided the vertical support ...
5
Shannon Lucid
Jenni Sidey
Loral O'Hara
Zena Cardman
Kayla Barron
Jessica Watkins
Nicole Aunapu Mann
Kathryn D. Sullivan
Mary Ellen Weber
Credits:
Nicole Mann was identified by looking at Wikipedia's list of female spacefarers.
3 through 6 were identified via NASA's Astronaut Candidates page, which @CourageousPotato discovered.
The remaining astronauts were ...
2
Partial answer (throttle settings):
Throttle settings varied per flight, and NASA quit publishing these Mission Reports a long time ago. But here are some numbers to get you started, from STS-81 (the last one I could find online).
For the 3-G throttling that starts at 012:09:34:51.537 and ends at 012:09:35:48.513 you can assume a linear ramp on the ...
1
No actually flown Shuttle mission executed such a quick timeline. The likelihood of crewmembers experiencing Space Adaptation Syndrome would have made it...interesting.
Crews were trained throughout the program to perform a superficially similar timeline called Abort Once Around (AOA) which also involved landing after a single rev. But major failures were ...
0
The Space Shuttle could have made money as technically it performs very well at delivering large payloads to the ISS (Falcon 9 rockets cost 1.39X more to deliver people and payloads to the ISS according to my table below). The Space Shuttle is probably is not as nimble and adaptable as other smaller systems - both technically and from a pace-of-business ...
6
It's important to note that Al-Saud (the way his name was listed in his NASA bio, now gone down the memory hole like most of jsc.nasa.gov) paid for his ticket.
Back in those days of flying commercial payloads on the Shuttle, it was possible to pay for a payload specialist seat as part of "Standard Launch Services".
(emphasis mine, scanned from STS Customer ...
5
While this is much granier than the BBC snippet, it does contain the audio overlay and is the same video the BBC clip has, but contains the full event cycle. "Lock the doors" happens around 12:24
Key parts of the full audio (time in the video first)
13:41 - OK all flight controllers on the Flight [Director] loop, we need ...
-2
Because the Handbook told him to was assuredly the proximate cause for him saying the phrase, and evidence preservation is undoubtedly a good reason the manual says to do so, but--so much as a movie and my memory can be trusted--in The Right Stuff, during Mercury, higher ups overruled the Flight Director on an important call during an anomaly. I believe the ...
8
Here's the normal orbit configuration for the Orbiter's Pressure Control System (PCS).
~850 psi O2 (yellow) flows in from the cryogenic tanks (also used to feed the fuel cells) in the Orbiter midbody, over a heat exchanger with the Freon loop which warms the O2, through a flow restrictor and filter into a 100 psi regulator.
~3000 psi N2 (purple) flows in ...
1
I've just come upon this question almost 5 years late, and over 16 years post disaster, but I remember the events at the time clearly enough to add to the answers.
I'm in New Zealand.
I recall pre re-entry
News discussions post launch re possible damage to the orbiter from foam from the ET.
News discussions of the possibility of aligning the orbiter to ...
44
This is indeed part of the procedure that is invoked when a contingency has occurred. It is part of Standard Operation Procedure 2.8 - JSC Contingency Plan, which can be found in the Shuttle Flight Control Operations Handbook (link to 538-page pdf - referenced here) on page 2.8-1. It provides the steps to be taken to secure all data for future investigations ...
22
Does he mean lock the doors in the NASA building, in order to begin some internal investigation, and nobody is allowed to leave, as a matter of policy?
Yes, this. It's part of a standard procedure to ensure evidence is preserved for the investigation. It's to prevent people entering as well as leaving.
0
I have managed to scrounge up (around the internet) SRB Case Use Histories for the following flights and tests:
STS-092
STS-093
STS-096
STS-097
STS-098
STS-099
STS-100
STS-102
STS-103
STS-105
STS-107
STS-108
STS-109
STS-111
STS-113
STS-132
STS-133
STS-134
STS-135
Ares 1-X
SLS QM-1
For a goodly part of last year I was communicating with the collator of the ...
2
This answer is highly suspect and should be independently verified. Also, it only talks about the timers and the Master Timing Unit:
The computers themselves:
The IBM System/4_PI architecture was used as the system architecture for the AP101 source
The timer feature on this system was a full word (so, presumably 32 bits) Source, but not a primary source
...
6
During the Apollo era (1967-1972), 4 NASA astronauts died during training or test flight. Those 4 brave people were the Apollo 1 crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee. The fourth astronaut was Clifton C. Williams who died flying a training jet.
However no NASA astronaut died in spaceflight during the Apollo era. Unfortunately, there were ...
7
This is a strange question, but it is worth answering. The ultimate answer is:
Space is hard. But let's unpack that.
There were many, many factors that led to the various failures and accidents. Some of them were a simple lack of understanding during the design phase - space is hard, that's not a joke but a reality. Simply put, we don't understand how ...
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