- Email: [email protected]
NASA replanning activities
Command is responsible for management and operational control of all Navy satellites in use and provides direct space system support to the fleet worldwide. After attending schools in Fayette and Meridian, Miss., Truly enrolled as an NROTC midshipman at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1955. He received a bachelor of aeronautical engineering degree and was commissioned an Ensign in the US Navy in 1959. Truly has received numerous Defense, Navy and NASA awards. He is also the recipient of the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Thomas D. White Space Trophy and the Robert J. Collier Trophy. Truly is married to the former Colleen Harmer of Milledgeville, Ga. They have three children.
3.5. NASA REPLANNINGACTIVITIES’”
NASA announced today that it is engaged in a comprehensive project to evaluate the implications on the space programme of the Challenger accident on 28 January 1986. The agency has already announced postponement of the Ulysses mission to observe the poles of the Sun and the Galileo mission to orbit Jupiter and send a probe into its atmosphere. Both were scheduled to be launched in May. The earliest they can be launched is July 1987 when Earth, the Sun and Jupiter will be in the proper alignment. Also already announced is postponement of the launch of Astro-1, a Space Shuttle astronomical laboratory that was to do ultraviolet studies of quasars, “hot” stars, galaxy centres and Halley’s Comet. These decisions by Acting NASA Administrator, Dr. William R. Graham, resulted from an analysis prepared by a Headquarters Replanning Task Force set up to study programme alternatives in the wake of the accident. The Replanning Task Force is headed by Dr. Raymond S. Colladay, Associate Administrator for Aeronautics and Space Technology. Being consulted are Congressional committees, the Department of Defense and other branches of government, commercial launch customers, joint endeavour agreement development partners, the international community, contractors and others. Graham has announced that an additional decision has come out of the study group’s work. An order has been issued to have the Shuttle orbiter Discovery modified to enable it to carry cargoes with the Centaur upper stage. An upper stage is a rocket attached to a spacecraft to propel it to geosynchronous orbit from low-Earth orbit where it is deployed by the Space Shuttle. The Centaur is an especially powerful upper stage designed to launch planetary missions. Modification would allow both Ulysses and Galileo missions to be launched in July 1987, and give the orbiter fleet more
@)NASA Release No. 86-22
of 3 March 1986.
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flexibility. With Challenger’s loss, only Atlantis is now capable of carrying Centaur payloads. The following is a list of matters being considered by the task force: 1. Review of the requirements for an orbiter and ancillary equipment to replace the Challenger, structural spares to replace existing spares that would be used to build the replacement, funds to make any corrections to the Space Shuttle that result from the accident investigation and replacement of Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) airborne support equipment. The lost IUS and its support structure were attached to a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, also lost. 2. Production of a new launch schedule for the fleet of three orbiters, possibly supplemented by expendable launch vehicles, based on priorities assigned to various payloads of cargo and the urgency of individual payloads. Schedulers have been instructed to evaluate alternative approaches based on 12- or M-month delays before resumption of Space Shuttle flights. Payload categories in the replanning process include national security, scientific with specific launch windows such as the Ulysses and Galileo planetary missions, other US goverment, and foreign and domestic commercial payloads such as communications satellites. 3. Possibility of bringing the West Coast launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on line. NASA would assign an orbiter for several weeks of “pathfinder” work in the development process. 4. Evaluation of the role that expendable launch vehicles (ELV) can play in recovering launch capability through commercial ELV production and operation. Some of the factors include the priority customers assign to their individual payloads, considerations of cost to customers, availability of ELVs, their performance capability, foreign competition and the opportunity for the development of a private commercial launch capability in the United States. 5. Decision on retention of ground communications stations. The ground stations around the world, which link spacecraft to Earth, were being phased out with expansion of the TDRS system. Because of the accident, only one TDRS is now on orbit, rather than the planned two. 6. Identification of cost impacts of the accident in addition to the equipment destroyed. Some already identified include Challenger salvage operations and retention of tracking stations. Cost reductions will include a slow down in the Galileo and Ulysses programmes, reduced procurement of Shuttle external tanks and solid rocket boosters, and reduced manpower costs associated with the gap in the Shuttle flight schedule. The NASA Replanning Task Force is meeting daily.
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3.5. NASA REPLANNINGACTIVITIES’”
NASA announced today that it is engaged in a comprehensive project to evaluate the implications on the space programme of the Challenger accident on 28 January 1986. The agency has already announced postponement of the Ulysses mission to observe the poles of the Sun and the Galileo mission to orbit Jupiter and send a probe into its atmosphere. Both were scheduled to be launched in May. The earliest they can be launched is July 1987 when Earth, the Sun and Jupiter will be in the proper alignment. Also already announced is postponement of the launch of Astro-1, a Space Shuttle astronomical laboratory that was to do ultraviolet studies of quasars, “hot” stars, galaxy centres and Halley’s Comet. These decisions by Acting NASA Administrator, Dr. William R. Graham, resulted from an analysis prepared by a Headquarters Replanning Task Force set up to study programme alternatives in the wake of the accident. The Replanning Task Force is headed by Dr. Raymond S. Colladay, Associate Administrator for Aeronautics and Space Technology. Being consulted are Congressional committees, the Department of Defense and other branches of government, commercial launch customers, joint endeavour agreement development partners, the international community, contractors and others. Graham has announced that an additional decision has come out of the study group’s work. An order has been issued to have the Shuttle orbiter Discovery modified to enable it to carry cargoes with the Centaur upper stage. An upper stage is a rocket attached to a spacecraft to propel it to geosynchronous orbit from low-Earth orbit where it is deployed by the Space Shuttle. The Centaur is an especially powerful upper stage designed to launch planetary missions. Modification would allow both Ulysses and Galileo missions to be launched in July 1987, and give the orbiter fleet more
@)NASA Release No. 86-22
of 3 March 1986.
117
flexibility. With Challenger’s loss, only Atlantis is now capable of carrying Centaur payloads. The following is a list of matters being considered by the task force: 1. Review of the requirements for an orbiter and ancillary equipment to replace the Challenger, structural spares to replace existing spares that would be used to build the replacement, funds to make any corrections to the Space Shuttle that result from the accident investigation and replacement of Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) airborne support equipment. The lost IUS and its support structure were attached to a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, also lost. 2. Production of a new launch schedule for the fleet of three orbiters, possibly supplemented by expendable launch vehicles, based on priorities assigned to various payloads of cargo and the urgency of individual payloads. Schedulers have been instructed to evaluate alternative approaches based on 12- or M-month delays before resumption of Space Shuttle flights. Payload categories in the replanning process include national security, scientific with specific launch windows such as the Ulysses and Galileo planetary missions, other US goverment, and foreign and domestic commercial payloads such as communications satellites. 3. Possibility of bringing the West Coast launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on line. NASA would assign an orbiter for several weeks of “pathfinder” work in the development process. 4. Evaluation of the role that expendable launch vehicles (ELV) can play in recovering launch capability through commercial ELV production and operation. Some of the factors include the priority customers assign to their individual payloads, considerations of cost to customers, availability of ELVs, their performance capability, foreign competition and the opportunity for the development of a private commercial launch capability in the United States. 5. Decision on retention of ground communications stations. The ground stations around the world, which link spacecraft to Earth, were being phased out with expansion of the TDRS system. Because of the accident, only one TDRS is now on orbit, rather than the planned two. 6. Identification of cost impacts of the accident in addition to the equipment destroyed. Some already identified include Challenger salvage operations and retention of tracking stations. Cost reductions will include a slow down in the Galileo and Ulysses programmes, reduced procurement of Shuttle external tanks and solid rocket boosters, and reduced manpower costs associated with the gap in the Shuttle flight schedule. The NASA Replanning Task Force is meeting daily.
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