A bold plan that could save the shuttle Columbia. Part 1

What could be done ... Source: Lee Hutchinson / NASA / NOAA

“If we die, we want people to take it for granted. We are engaged in a risky business and hope that if something happens to us, the program will not be delayed. Space exploration is worth risking your life for it. ”
- Astronaut Gus Grissom, 1965

“ First of all, it is important to note that the Columbia crash occurred during that phase of the flight, which, given the current design of the aircraft, did not give the crew chances of survival. ”
- From the report of the Columbia shuttle crash investigation commission

On January 15, 2003, at 10:39 Eastern Standard Time, the space shuttle Columbia launched from site 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After only 81.7 seconds, a piece of thermal insulation foam fell off the ship’s orange outer fuel tank and crashed into the running edge of the left wing at a relative speed of at least 640 km / h, but Colombia continued its ascent to orbit.

NASA did not watch the hit live. Only after the shuttle reached the Earth’s orbit did NASA launch image analysis, which revealed that the wing had been hit. Chipping of parts during the launch occurs regularly and program managers decided not to do an orbital survey of the Colombia state and a visual assessment of the size of the potential damage. Instead, a special NASA team conducted a theoretical simulation of the collision of a ship with a wreck, but was unable to come to any definitive conclusions regarding the state of the shuttle's wing. The mission continued.

In fact, the blow broke at least one carbon-carbon heat-insulating panel vital for the ship, which edged the wing edges, resulting in a huge hole in the fragile ceramic material. Sixteen days later, when Columbia again entered the atmosphere, superheated plasma penetrated the internal structures of the ship through a hole in the wing and the shuttle began to disintegrate.

At the flight control center in Houston, operators monitoring the launch of the Columbia began to notice interruptions in receiving telemetry data from the shuttle, after which all voice communication and the exchange of information with the ship were lost. Even when there was evidence that a catastrophe had occurred, operators continued to hope that they were only observing hardware errors. In the end, at 9:12 CET, the head of the control of the stage of entering the atmosphere, Leroy Kane gave an order, which everyone was afraid to hear, and which had been heard only once, 17 years ago, when the Challenger fell apart start: " Lock the door ."

This meant recognizing that the worst had happened: the mission had now switched to the “Emergency” mode. The doors of the control center were closed and the operators inside began to carefully record all the information from their control consoles.

Colombia was lost and all seven members of her team were dead. NASA designates this rarest and worst possible situation as LOCV— “Loss of Crew and Vehicle” ( loss of crew and ship - approx. Translator ).

Full freeze

“Colombia is lost. There are no survivors. ”
- President George W. Bush in an address to the nation about the incident, 2:14 p.m. EST on February 1, 2003.

The whole world of space flights froze - first mourning the dead, and then, trying to understand what happened. Congress placed the responsibility of the investigation on the Columbia Disaster Investigation Commission (which, as NASA has adopted, its acronym CAIB, similar in pronunciation to Gabe). Within a few months after this, CAIB, during its investigation, infiltrated all the structures of NASA and its contract suppliers.

In my own recollections of what followed the catastrophe, paintings of gloomy encounters and crazy work predominate. I was then the chief system administrator for the Boeing company in Houston, and since we supported the shuttle program, we had to look for and send NASA analysts a bunch of boxes with backup cassettes containing everything that happened on each of our data center servers during the mission .

In August 2003, CAIB published its final report.. Along with the unveiling of the direct reason for being hit by a piece of foam, the report contained serious criticism of the decisions made before and after the launch, portraying NASA as an agency driven by mid-level management obsessed with getting high-profile results. The excessive concentration of structures on their own goals and the specifics of reporting, without additional focus on the joint work of the units and maintaining communication between them, played at least no less a role in the crash than the collision with the fragment did. These accusations echoed with a barely audible echo, already familiar to us from the events of 17 years ago, when many of them had already been voiced by the Rogers Commission investigating the Challenger disaster.

In the final analysis, what happened to Columbia led not only to the loss of human lives, but also to the completion of many careers at all NASA levels. Some well-known flight program managers were transferred to other posts. The collapse of Columbia also likely caused NASA Director Sean O'Keefe to resign. Many people who worked on the mission, including the large number of people who work at NASA to this day, are still struggling with post-traumatic stress and the guilt of the survivor. All scheduled shuttle flights were suspended and three Columbia companion ships, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor, were returned to Earth.

NASA turned its gaze into itself, and we wondered if we would now fly into space again.

A choice that has not been made

“To get a complete picture of the events, the commission asked NASA to determine whether the STS-107 flight crew had the opportunity to return safe and sound.”
- From the report of the Columbia shuttle crash investigation commission, the

above describes the events that actually happened. But let's introduce an alternative story to the Columbia mission, where NASA quickly realized how devastating the wreckage was. Was there a safe way to take astronauts out of orbit?

At the time of writing their report, CAIB asked the same question, so they asked NASA to develop a theoretical repair and rescue plan for Columbia, “based on the assumption that damage to the wing during launch would have been noticed early.” The result was completely an exceptional collection of documents that appears at the end of the report as “Appendix D.13”. It goes under the modest heading " Possible Developments During the STS-107 Flight ", however, the scenario described in it would force NASA to work to the limit of its capabilities, carrying out the most ambitious space operation of all time.

The NASA engineers responsible for the planning really had one trump card in their sleeve that made this plan possible: during the Columbia flight STS-107, Atlantis was already preparing for the STS-114 flight, which was scheduled to launch on March 1 . As the Columbia flew into orbit, the younger shuttle was located in Spacecraft Training Zone No. 1 (OPF-1) at the Kennedy Space Center. Three of its main engines were already installed, although flight equipment and a manipulator arm were still missing in its cargo compartment. There were still two weeks of preparatory work and putting it into working condition, after which it had to be transported through the entire space center to the huge Vertical Assembly Unit in order to connect it to an external fuel tank and a pair of solid-propellant launch rockets.


Endeavor in preparation for OPF-2. Atlantis went through the same procedures when Columbia flew on its last mission. Source: Lee Hutchinson / NASA / NOAA

And it follows that rescue in orbit was at least possible, but preparing the shuttle for flight is an incredibly complex procedure that involves millions of individual steps. In order to bring the launch of Atlantis closer, the planners needed to determine which steps in which procedures could be safely skipped without endangering the life of the rescue team.

Desperate race

“The scenarios suggested that decisions to fix the Columbia shuttle or rescue his crew should have been made quickly and without taking into account possible risks.”
- From Appendix D.13 of the Columbia shuttle crash investigation commission report,

however, even before how these decisions could be made, NASA also had to estimate the amount of time they had to prepare. According to NASA's Columbia reserves, planners realized that the most critical problem for astronauts was not a shortage of something like air or water, but the production of an excess of something else, namely carbon dioxide.

Weight is a very valuable resource for a space ship. For each gram of mass that you need to push into orbit, you pay with fuel, adding which you also add extra weight, for which you again pay with even more fuel (this vicious circle “mass adds fuel, which adds mass, which adds fuel, which adds mass ”is also called“ tyranny of the rocket equation"). Unable to receive air from space, the ship goes on a flight with a limited amount of air inside, which they process, returning the missing gases to its structure. The space shuttle carries with it reserves of liquid oxygen and nitrogen, which turn into gas and mix with air inside the crew compartment in order to maintain a ratio of 78% nitrogen / 21% oxygen, as in the Earth’s atmosphere, but the team exhales carbon dioxide, which must be removed from the air.

To do this, the air in the shuttle is filtered through containers filled with lithium hydroxide (LiOH), which reacts with carbon dioxide molecules and forms lithium carbonate crystals (Li2CO3), thus isolating toxic CO molecules. Each of these containers contains a certain amount of LiOH, so their use is limited in time. Colombia was equipped with 69 such tanks.

However, it is difficult to assess how long these 69 tanks could hold out, because there is quite a bit of reliable information about what level of carbon dioxide a human body can withstand under conditions of weak gravity. The standard rules for behavior during a mission indicate that it must be discontinued if the CO2 level exceeds a partial pressure mark of 15 mmHg. (about two percent of the air volume in the crew compartment). Mission planning engineers believed that they could expand their supply of LiOH tanks at Columbia so that the team would have 30 days to fly without exceeding the specified threshold. However, this would require the crew to spend every half-day a day at bedtime, rest, and generally everything that would not require high metabolic activity.


Original Image Source: NASA / CAIB Report, Appendix D.13

If the team were not able to maintain such low activity, then, according to the assumptions of NASA aviation doctors, the increase in partial pressure to 26.6 mm. Hg. Art. (about 3.5% of the air volume of the crew compartment) “would not have a long-term effect on the health of crew members.” This would allow the team to work in a more normal schedule with 8 hours of sleep and 16 hours of wakefulness, at the cost of possible physiological ailments, such as headaches, fatigue and other problems associated with high levels of carbon dioxide, which would begin to manifest rather quickly.


Original Image Source: NASA / CAIB Report, Appendix D.13

The next element after carbon dioxide filters, the most limited element in consumption, is oxygen. Stocks of liquid oxygen were used not only to recreate an atmosphere suitable for breathing, but also to generate electricity in the shuttle's fuel cells (which mix oxygen and hydrogen to produce not only electricity, but also drinking water). The amount of liquid oxygen on board could be extended for the same 30 days as in the case of CO2 filters, dramatically reducing electricity consumption at Columbia.

The three remaining food consumed were food, water, and jet fuel. Assuming minimal movement from the side of the team, food and water could be extended for a much longer time than the supply of containers with LiOH. To save fuel, the ship would have to be positioned in space so that it required a minimum of fuel to maintain course.

When exactly the Colombia team would be able to put these energy and oxygen conservation measures into action depended on the short decision-making order. In the scenario we are considering, we assume that NASA already on the second day of the flight (January 17) determined that the impact from the wreckage caused damage. Then it would take another day to collect Columbia’s images using “national assets” such as ground-based telescopes and other space-based sources (such as spy satellites) controlled by USSTRATCOM .


The increased size Source: NASA / CAIB Report, Appendix D.13

If it were possible to determine the damage using the acquired images, Colombia would immediately enter a low-energy mode. If the images did not allow a conclusion, the team would undertake an EVA (extra-vehicular activity - exit to the surface of the shuttle) to visually assess the damage to the wing and after that would turn off the power consumption.

In any case, the third day of the flight would mark the beginning of many sleepless nights for a large number of people.

No mistakes, no alterations

“A rescue mission, if fully feasible, would be a test for everyone.”
- From the Columbia Shuttle Disaster Investigation Commission report

Planning for the shuttle to go outside would take the entire 4 day of flight (January 19), but the lithium hydroxide tanks were about to expire at exactly 30 days of flight (February 15), regardless of what happens on Earth. Therefore, simultaneously with this, the Kennedy Space Center was supposed to begin work to accelerate the preparation of Atlantis.

Acceleration is too simple a word to describe the titanic efforts that would be required. Activities that usually take weeks or months should have been carried out within hours or days. Officials and workers had to start working 24 hours a day, the devices had to function continuously, it would take every hour in a day for 21 days to conduct Atlantis through the test and prepare it for launch.

It would be three weeks of ongoing and hard round-the-clock work without the right to make a mistake or fail. The teams of the Ship Preparation Zone, Vertical Assembly Unit, and Launch Pad No. 39 had to complete millions of steps correctly, and each Atlantis module should function perfectly for the first time in all flights. Otherwise, all the work would go down the drain.


Source: NASA / CAIB Report, Appendix D.13

Work ahead. First of all, the Atlantis computers had to be reprogrammed to match the changes in the mission. Fortunately, the flight software developed for docking with the ISS as part of the STS-114 flight could be adapted for docking with Columbia, although most of the parameters would have to be changed for this. Changes would be uploaded to Atlantis computers during the DOLILU — the Day of Launch Input Load Update .), the standard software update that the shuttle receives two hours before launch. Usually, DOLILU includes an update to the control system needed to prepare the shuttle for the weather on the launch day, however, the update we are talking about would change absolutely all flight settings. This would be the largest software update that they have ever tried to implement on the launch pad.

To complete the Atlantis training as soon as possible, you would have to skip a series of standard checks. Just 6 days after arriving in the Ship Preparation Zone, Atlantis was supposed to get into the Vertical Assembly Unit, round-the-clock preparatory work in which could save another 1 day in order to connect it to an external fuel tank and launch vehicles as soon as possible. Just 4 days later, on January 30, on the 15th day of the flight, one of the two tracked conveyors would drive the Atlantis to the 39th launch complex, where it would be placed on site A or B.


On a cloudy day, the tracked conveyor was driven by Atlantis to launch the flight STS-129. Source: NASA / WikiMedia Commons

As soon as the ship was on the site, the final jerk to its launch would begin. The astronauts chosen for this mission would fly without a countdown rehearsal. There would be no additional fuel leak checks. Prior to this launch, the shuttles were on site for 14 days. The Atlantis team would only have 11 days to prepare it for the flight.

And while the workers at Cape Canaveral at a crazy pace were trying to get ahead of time, even more work needed to be done at the Space Center named after Lyndon Johnson in Houston, because, among other things, Atlantis needed a team.

Do it right

“It was very important to be sure that astronauts could quickly adapt to low gravity environments.”
- From Appendix D.13 of the Columbia Space Shuttle Crash Investigation Commission report

, there were 7 astronauts aboard the Columbia, which by the 15th half of their unexpectedly extended mission will be completed on the day of the flight. This was a problem for NASA: space shuttles were designed for 5-7 astronauts on board, and Atlantis needed its own team to go on a flight to meet with Columbia. Upon his return, he would bring with him not only the astronauts with whom he flew away, but also the rescued team of Colombia, therefore, in order to minimize the number of people on board, it was necessary to determine the minimum number of people required to complete the mission.

After analyzing the situation, it was found that Atlatis would need a minimum team of 4 people. Two of them - the commander and pilot, would be needed directly for the flight, rapprochement to the connection and control of the vessel during the docking, which, according to NASA estimates, will take at least 8-9 hours of active manual piloting (and possibly even more). The other two team members would put on spacesuits and carry out a rescue mission that NASA would have to design from scratch.

As in all other tasks related to salvation, there was also no right to make mistakes or the ability to redo something. Atlantis had to fly with a team consisting of veterans who would be selected on the basis of, first of all, the ability of astronauts to quickly adapt to low gravity conditions (there was no time to fight space illness) and suitability for work on the surface of the shuttle and during docking. The report does not provide specific names, but it does indicate a list of 9 candidates to go outside, 7 candidates for the role of commander, and 7 candidates for pilots who are capable, according to NASA, to embark on a mission in January 2003.

The four astronauts selected for the flight on the Atlantis would face an extremely tight training schedule, as well as incredible professional and psychological stresses. The tight deadlines meant that the two astronauts directly selected for the rescue mission between the two shuttles would most likely have trained almost every day for these two weeks at the NASA Hydro-Zero Gravity Laboratory, breaking all the many hours in space into small actions and procedures, repeating them. until they firmly settle in memory. In parallel with this, two astronauts selected to pilot the shuttle would spend this time in huge simulators in the building No. 9 of the Space Center named after Lyndon Johnson, working out every moment of rapprochement, maintaining the connection and the connection itself from start to finish.


View of the NASA Hydro-Weightlessness Laboratory from one of the test control rooms. Source: Steven Michael We

can also say with confidence that the media would have exerted their own colossal pressure, trying to stick cameras everywhere and illuminate every corner of the rooms where the training is being conducted. “Space catastrophe” and “rescue mission” would be the highest rated phrases. Clear Lake in Houston and Cape Canaveral in Florida would be crowded with mobile TV stations. The emblem of NASA’s first rescue mission would be the main backdrop on both local and national television.

And while weeks of madness would go on Earth, the Columbia team was waiting.

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