[AS]The Real Mission Impossible: Remembering STS-61C's Quest for Space

[mss]

The Real Mission Impossible: Remembering STS-61C's Quest for Space
By Ben Evans, on January 12th, 2020


“Mission Impossible” finally launches as Columbia roars into the darkened Florida skies on 12 January 1986. Photo Credit: NASA

The opening weeks of each year are always tinged with sadness for America’s space program, as the nation observes a triplet of cruel anniversaries: the 1967 loss of Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in a fire on Pad 34, the 1986 disaster which engulfed the Challenger Seven in the skies above Cape Canaveral and, more recently, but no less painfully, the 2003 destruction of Columbia as her own seven-strong crew returned from a highly successful research mission in low-Earth orbit.

Yet at the dawn of the New Year in 1986, as the 51L astronauts trained for a mission they would never get to fully execute, another crew came to edge of disaster not once, but twice. Forget Tom Cruise. Columbia’s almost-ill-fated Mission 61C in January 1986 was the “real” Mission Impossible.


Charlie Bolden, pictured during Mission 61C. One of his earliest lessons as an astronaut was the perils of “Hoot’s Law”. Photo Credit: NASA

The 61C crew had been assigned more than a year earlier, in October 1984, and for a while it seemed that simply getting a solid payload for their mission would be impossible. Commander Robert “Hoot” Gibson, pilot Charlie Bolden—a future NASA Administrator under Barack Obama’s administration—and mission specialists George “Pinky” Nelson, Steve Hawley and Costa Rica-born Franklin Chang-Diaz were initially pointed at a flight to deploy a pair of communications satellites and perform materials science experiments. Then their mission changed to deploy a large NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) and a Spartan free-flying payload to observe Halley’s Comet, before a raft of additional changes throughout 1985. By the end of the year, finally, they had been assigned a powerful Radio Corporation of America (RCA) communications satellite called Satcom Ku-1.

Gibson’s crew was also expanded to seven members with two payload specialists. One of them, RCA’s Bob Cenker, would oversee the deployment of Satcom Ku-1. The other was originally meant to be a Hughes Aircraft engineer named Greg Jarvis, who had already been moved off several earlier shuttle missions and would be moved off 61C…to a seat on Challenger’s tragic final voyage. In place of Jarvis was Congressman Bill Nelson, one of a series of politicians NASA was flying on the shuttle to curry favor with its political masters.


Members of Mission 61C participate in zero-G training. From left are George “Pinky” Nelson, Charlie Bolden, Steve Hawley, Bob Cenker and Bill Nelson. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

The first sense that 61C might turn into an impossible mission came during training when Gibson taught Bolden about shuttle systems and aerodynamics and the mysterious concept of “Hoot’s Law”. By his own admission, Bolden struggled during his first few months of mission-specific training; on one occasion, in the simulator, the instructors threw an engine malfunction at the crew. Bolden accidentally shut down the wrong power bus, disabling a healthy main engine. “We went from having one engine down in the orbiter, which we could’ve gotten out of, to having two engines down,” Bolden told the NASA oral historian years later, “and we were in the water, dead.” If this simulation had been for real, the shuttle would indeed have been lost, with all hands.

Gibson turned to Bolden, patted his pilot on the shoulder and spoke. “Charlie, let me tell you about Hoot’s Law.”

“What’s Hoot’s Law?”

“No matter how bad things get, you can always make them worse!”


Columbia sits on Pad 39A (foreground), awaiting Mission 61C, whilst her sister Challenger resides on Pad 39B for the forthcoming (and ultimately ill-fated) Mission 51L. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

Gibson’s words proved ominously prescient. Scheduled to launch at 7 a.m. EST on 18 December 1985 as the tenth shuttle mission of the year, 61C was routinely postponed by 24 hours to give technicians more time to finish closing out shuttle Columbia’s aft compartment. Next day, the countdown was halted dramatically at T-14 seconds, when flight controllers received an indication that the Hydraulic Power Unit (HPU) on the right-hand Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) had exceeded its maximum allowable turbine speed limit.

“We were happy as clams,” Bolden recalled of the build-up to the second launch attempt. “All of a sudden, everything stopped and the countdown clock went back to T-9 [minutes] and kind of ticked there. We had no idea what had happened. As they started looking at the data, they had an indication that we had a problem with the right-hand booster.” Although the HPU fault turned out to be an erroneous signal, the launch window for the day had closed and the attempt was scrubbed.


The patch for Mission 61C, designed by the crew. Image Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

With the impending Christmas holidays, 61C’s next launch date was set for 6 January 1986, which pushed it right up against the next mission, 51L, scheduled to fly later that same month. The delay also posited a problem for Columbia herself in terms of how quickly she could be turned around between flights, since she was set for another mission, 61E, in March 1986, to observe Halley’s Comet.

For the crew, the festive period was a chance to relax after more than a year of intensive training in the simulators and uncertainty over when they would ever fly. “We stayed in quarantine a lot of the time,” remembered Hawley in his NASA oral history. “When you’re in a launch mode, down in Florida, the pace is not very hectic. You’re not in training, like you would be if you’re in Houston and going to the simulators every day. You’re reviewing procedures and checklists and having a nice time, because you have the opportunity to sort of sit back without the pressure of having to be in a sim. I’ve always enjoyed the time in quarantine, although, because of the launch time, we were getting up at two in the morning every day!”


Video Credit: NASA

Columbia’s launch attempt on 6 January turned out to be one of the most hazardous yet in the shuttle’s five-year operational history. The count was halted at T-31 seconds, following the accidental draining of 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of liquid oxygen from the External Tank. The fill and drain valve had not properly closed when commanded to do so.

Launch controllers reset the clock to T-20 minutes and efforts were made to reinitiate the liquid oxygen tanking, but it was quickly realized that time was running out and the window would close before the vehicle was ready. Another 24-hour delay was called. The next attempt, on the 7th, was scrubbed due to poor weather at two Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites in Spain and Senegal.


Robert ‘Hoot’ Gibson (right) and George ‘Pinky’ Nelson lead the 61C crew out of the Operations & Checkout Building for launch. Following is crewmate Steve Hawley. Photo Credit: NASA

Yet another try on the 9th similarly came to nothing when a liquid oxygen sensor on Pad 39A broke off and lodged itself in the prevalve of one of Columbia’s cluster of Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs). “That would have been a bad day,” Bolden recalled, grimly. “It would have been catastrophic, because the engine would have exploded, had we launched.” Heavy rain put paid to the next opportunity on 10 January, but on this occasion the seven-man crew was relieved. “We went down to T-31 seconds,” said Bolden, “and they went into a hold for weather and it was the worst thunderstorm I’d ever been in. We were really not happy about being there, because you could hear the lightning! You could hear stuff crackling in your headset. You’re sitting out there on the top of two million pounds of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and two [SRBs]. None of us were enamoured with being out there.”

The repeated delays took a financial toll, too. Previously, astronauts were responsible for getting their families to Florida, paying their way, finding motel rooms for them, and putting them up. Pinky Nelson’s wife, Susie, spent three weeks in a condo at Cape Canaveral, waiting, and their young children ended up missing the launch because they had missed so much school and went back to Houston. “Had the accident occurred on that flight, instead of the flight afterwards,” said Nelson, “it would have been just a nightmare scene, because the families were scattered all over the place.”


Columbia finally roars into space on 12 January 1986. Photo Credit: NASA

Despite their frustration at the repeatedly scrubbed launch attempts, the astronauts tried to remain upbeat. “We tried to wear a different shirt each day,” joked Gibson at the post-mission press conference, “so that we’d know exactly just which attempt this was,” adding that the astronauts got very good to walking out to—and back from—the crew van. As for the cause of the delays, there could be only one person to blame: Steve Hawley.

When the astronauts left their quarters in the pre-dawn darkness of 12 January, Hawley had ridden the bus to the launch pad on ten occasions for only two liftoffs. To this day, he is confident that a conversation and agreement he had with Gibson may have helped to finally get Columbia into orbit. “I decided that if [Columbia] didn’t know it was me, then maybe we’d launch,” he said, “and so I taped my name tag with grey tape and had the glasses-nose-moustache disguise and wore that.” It worked, and 61C roared aloft at 6:55 a.m. EST. Yet as next weekend’s AmericaSpace history article will show, the gods of misfortune were not yet done with Mission 61C.

Source: https://www.americaspace.com/2020/01/12/the-real-mission-impossible-remembering-sts-61cs-quest-for-space/

[Orionid]

Dziś mija 37 lat od startu jedynej udanej misji wahadłowca w 1986 roku.
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1613558937445437442
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-61C.html

https://twitter.com/ron_eisele/status/1745536834963148812

12 January 1986. 11.55.00 UTC/GMT. Launch of Space Shuttle Columbia from Kennedy LC-39A on mission STS-61-C. The last shuttle mission before the Space Shuttle Challenger mishap.

https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1745822947166556200

Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-61C) roared off the launchpad #OTD in 1986 with a crew of seven, including Franklin Chang-Díaz—the first American astronaut of Hispanic heritage—and two future NASA Administrators: Charlie Bolden and @SenBillNelson! More 👉 https://go.nasa.gov/3TWeQtZ

SHUTTLE IN SPACE AFTER 7 DELAYS; ASTRONAUTS LAUNCH RCA SATELLITE
By William J. Broad, Special To the New York Times Jan. 13, 1986

After weeks of frustration and a record seven postponements, the space shuttle Columbia soared into space this morning to begin a five-day scientific mission.

Within hours, the astronauts launched a $50 million communications satellite for the RCA Corporation and prepared for experiments in materials science, astrophysics, and the life sciences.

Later in the mission the crew is to make the first extensive observations from space of Halley's comet. The flight is the first of three consecutive flights that are to study the comet. Other nations have launched spacecraft toward the comet, but they are not yet in position.

Liftoff on Schedule

The predawn sky over the Kennedy Space Center was crystal clear and distant clouds were touched with pink as the 108-ton spaceship lifted off at 6:55 A.M., on schedule at last.

Its trailing plume of smoke was twisted by the wind and painted red and orange by the rising sun. Spectators, whose ranks had been thinned by weeks of delay, cheered and applauded as the Columbia thundered into the sky. At the control center, 350 relieved officials and technicians shouted, shook hands and slapped one another on the back.

''I don't remember the noise, yelling and clapping being that loud'' since the first space shuttle flight, also by the Columbia, almost five years ago, said Gene Thomas, the launch director.

''The view is spectacular,'' Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, the first Hispanic American to fly in space, radioed to mission control in Houston as the ship settled into orbit 200 miles above the earth. 'We've Got a Winner Today'

The Columbia's crew of seven includes Representative Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, who heads the House subcommittee that oversees the budget of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The ship's mission is the 24th of the shuttle program and the first of 15 scheduled for 1986, the most ambitious year yet for the space agency.

As the astronauts entered the spacecraft early this morning, Comdr. Robert L. Gibson of the Navy, the mission commander, remarked: ''I think we've got a winner today.''

Four times, the crew had boarded the spacecraft to await liftoffs that never came. Two were cancelled by bad weather, two by mechanical problems. The other three postponements were announced before the astronauts boarded the craft.

The previous record for postponements was set in 1984 by the Columbia's sister ship, the Discovery, whose first flight was delayed six times.

''We finally started a very busy year,'' Bob Sieck, the director of shuttle operations said at a news conference today. ''The launch team is very tired, but very happy and very proud.'' Craft Has New Equipment

The flight is the first in two years for the Columbia, the flagship of the nation's fleet, which made the first shuttle flight in 1981. The ship, built at a cost of $1 billion, has undergone an 18-month, $42 million overhaul to bring it up to the specifications of the Discovery and the two other shuttlecraft, the Challenger and the Atlantis.

In the overhaul, engineers updated navigation equipment and removed the Columbia's heavy ejection seats, considered crucial in the early days of the shuttle program and installed lighter seats. Parts of the ship's wings and body were strengthened. These changes made the Columbia the equal of the other shuttlecraft, whose design had been aided by data gleaned from the Columbia's initial flights.

In addition, the Columbia received a set of new instruments that have turned the orbiter into a unique high-technology research ship. Atop its vertical tail fin is a special infrared camera to make detailed temperature maps of the Columbia's surface as it reenters the earth's atmosphere. The new measurements are considered crucial for designing more advanced spaceplanes. Problems With Engines

The Columbia's overhaul did not include any modifications of its temperamental engines, which are the same as those used in other shuttles.

The first delay for Columbia occurred on Dec. 18 when ground crews fell behind schedule and were given an extra day to catch up. The launch countdown was halted on Dec. 19 when technical problem plagued the engine of a secondary launching rocket.

The third delay occurred when space agency officials decided to delay a Jan. 4 launching to give astronauts time to resume training on flight simulators after taking time off over the holidays. The fourth postponement came Jan. 6 after a problem developed in a fuel line to the shuttlecraft's main engines. A fifth postponement came Jan. 7 because of bad weather at emergency landing sites in Europe and Africa. Delays Cost $1.2 Million

The sixth postponement, Jan. 8, was ordered after technical problems were found in a control valve in a fuel line leading to one of the main engines. The seventh and final delay came on Jan. 10 because of driving wind and rain in Florida.

The postponements have cost the space agency at least $1.2 million in fuel and overtime pay.

NASA was eager to get the Columbia into space in order to avoid disrupting this year's schedule, which calls for six more launchings than in 1985.

Its highlight is the planned launching in October of the $1.2 billion Hubble Space Telescope, which will have 10 times more clarity than the best telescopes on earth. Challenger Flight Delayed

The Columbia's three weeks of delays resulted in a delay in the next flight of the Challenger, whose liftoff was pushed back a day to Jan. 24. The Challenger's crew of seven will include Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher.

The Columbia's crew members, in addition to Commander Gibson, Mr. Nelson and Dr. Chang, are Lieut. Col. Charles F. Bolden Jr. of the Marine Corps, the pilot; Dr. Steven A. Hawley, an astrophysicist who is married to the astronaut Sally Ride; Dr. George D. Nelson, an astronomer and Robert J. Cenker, a satellite engineer for RCA.

Mr. Nelson, whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center, is chairman of the House subcommittee on space science and applications. He is the second member of Congress to fly aboard the nation's winged spaceships. Senator Jake Garn, a Utah Republican who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees NASA spending, went on a shuttle mission in April. Groucho Marx Disguise

Dr. Hawley, who was on the Discovery's first voyage, is the nation's most delayed astronaut. He boarded Columbia today wearing a Groucho Marx disguise.

''What we were attempting to do was keep Columbia from being able to tell who it was getting on,'' Commander Gibson said.

Mr. Nelson is to serve as a subject of experiments by NASA doctors who want to learn more about the causes of space sickness, a form of nausea that has affected many astronauts. He will also operate an experiment to grow 60 different types of protein crystals, a difficult feat on earth.

The Columbia is scheduled to land at 7:09 A.M. Friday at the Kennedy Space Center. The landing would be the first here in nine months.

Last April, the Discovery blew a tire and suffered brake damage as it landed on the narrow Kennedy runway. Since then, engineers have developed a nose-wheel steering system to aid touchdowns here.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/13/us/shuttle-in-space-after-7-delays-astronauts-launch-rca-satellite.html

[mss]

Astro Info Service @aisoffice
The STS-61C stack was rolled to Pad 39A OTD 1985 for the intended 18 Dec launch. Several delays over the next month meant the mission [AKA "Mission Impossible"] was finally launched on 12 Jan 1986, at the 7th attempt. Getting back to Earth, finally on 18 Jan, took 5 attempts.

https://x.com/aisoffice/status/1863127639898067204