Spaceflight Now




Veteran credits rookies with saving the day on station
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: September 16, 2006

The successful attachment and deployment of a huge new set of solar arrays on the international space station "bodes well" for a complex set of upcoming shuttle flights to build out the main power truss and ready the craft for attachment of European and Japanese research modules, Atlantis commander Brent Jett said today.

Atlantis' flight marks the resumption of station assembly after a three-and-a-half-year hiatus and while Jett said he was heartened by his crew's success, every flight must go well for NASA to complete the outpost by the Bush administration's 2010 deadline.

"I think it's certainly a good start," Jett told CBS News in an interview today. "Obviously, we have a lot of complex missions ahead to finish the station by 2010. We needed to get the first one off, we had a few small problems but the team on the ground did a wonderful job resolving them. So I think it bodes well for the future. Plus, the lessons we learned on this mission we can pass on to future missions with similar hardware."

Space station Program Manager Mike Suffredini joked Friday that Jett's crew was so successful his biggest challenge now is convincing people station construction is as difficult as NASA managers and astronauts have been saying.

But Joe Tanner, a four-flight veteran who now ranks fourth in the world for total time spacewalking, said Atlantis' mission might not have gone so well if two rookies - Dan Burbank and Canadian flier Steve MacLean - hadn't gotten a galled bolt out during the crew's second spacewalk.

Asking about Suffredini's joking comment, Tanner said "I want to squash that bug right now. These EVAs were not easy. The fact that everybody said they looked easy is a real compliment to these three other people here and we appreciate it. Thank you very much."

Floating on Atlantis' aft flight deck by Burbank, MacLean and his own partner, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Tanner then reached down and pulled up a giant wrench.

"I know these two guys, these big, strong guys, aren't going to brag on themselves, so I want to show you the tool that they used on EVA-2," Tanner said. "This is a ratchet wrench with a nine-inch rigid extension and a cheater bar to give yourself a little more leverage. The moment arm here is around two feet and these guys backed out a bolt that was sticky, they're estimating it was probably 130 to 140 foot pounds of torque. They basically cut some new threads in a pretty sizable bolt. That was not in any shape or form easy.

"If we hadn't gotten that bolt out, the arrays would not have been able to deploy and we'd be scratching our heads right now trying to figure out how to get that bolt out. So thanks for telling us we made it look easy, but it certainly was not."

Atlantis blasted off Sept. 9, one day after a fuel tank hydrogen sensor malfunctioned and forced a 24-hour delay. NASA managers considered launching Atlantis that same day, despite a flight rule that calls for a 24-hour stand down in that situation. In the end, launch was scrubbed during a final hold at the T-minus nine-minute mark.

Jett said today he agreed with the decision to stand down in accordance with the applicable launch commit criteria, or LCC. But he didn't mind taking the countdown into the final hold while the issue was discussed.

"When we left for the pad, we sort of expected that we were not going to launch," he said. "We knew what the LCC rule was, it was written very clearly. We write those rules ahead of time so when we get into a situation with launch pressure, or maybe a little bit of launch fever, we can go to the rules and (know) we've debated all that rationale in a calmer environment.

"We were ready to go, obviously, but we expected to go out and at some point scrub in the launch. But we felt it was a very worthwhile exercise because we know it was good to check out as many of the systems on the vehicle, take the count as far as you can, to try to discover any potential issues for that launch attempt on Saturday."

Jett, Tanner, Burbank, Piper, MacLean and pilot Chris Ferguson enjoyed a half-day off earlier today. Sunday morning, Atlantis is scheduled to undock from the space station and, after a one-and-a-quarter-loop fly-around for a photo survey of the lab complex, back away to a point about 40 nautical miles away.

On Monday, the crew will carry out a second inspection of the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels, which experience the most extreme heating during re-entry, to make sure no space debris or micrometeoroids hit the craft after a similar inspection the day after launch.

Assuming no problems are found, the astronauts will pack up Tuesday and test the shuttle's re-entry systems before heading back to the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday morning.

Touchdown is targeted for 5:57 a.m., but forecasters say high crosswinds and possible thundershowers could cause problems. Atlantis has enough on-board supplies, however, to stay in orbit for at least three additional days if necessary. The forecast improves Thursday, with light winds and only a slight chance of showers.

Spaceflight Now Plus
Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO: LAUNCH AS SEEN BY HIGH-ALTITUDE WB-57 AIRCRAFT PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: STARBOARD INWARD PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: STARBOARD UPWARD PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: STARBOARD DOWNWARD PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: PORT INWARD PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: PORT UPWARD PLAY
VIDEO: SOLID ROCKET BOOSTER CAM: PORT DOWNWARD PLAY

VIDEO: FIRST SOLAR WING DEPLOYED HALF-WAY PLAY
VIDEO: SECOND SOLAR WING EXTENDED ONE SECTION PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST SOLAR WING EXTENDED ONE SECTION PLAY

VIDEO: POST-EVA 2 STATUS BRIEFING DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: PORT 3/PORT 4 TRUSS KEEL PIN REMOVED AND STOWED PLAY
VIDEO: HELMETCAM OF BURBANK REMOVING SARJ RESTRAINT PLAY
VIDEO: SPACEWALKERS PAUSE FOR PICTURE TIME PLAY
VIDEO: STEVE MACLEAN REPORTS LOST BOLT PLAY
VIDEO: ROTARY JOINT LOCK REMOVED BY SPACEWALKER PLAY
VIDEO: STEP-BY-STEP PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 2 PLAY
VIDEO: POST-EVA 1 STATUS BRIEFING DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: TANNER LOSES BOLT DURING ROTARY JOINT WORK PLAY
VIDEO: PIPER UNFOLDS SOLAR BLANKET BOXES SHORT | FULL
VIDEO: SECOND WING'S STRUCTURE DEPLOYED BY PIPER PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST SOLAR WING'S STRUCTURE DEPLOYED BY TANNER PLAY
VIDEO: STEP-BY-STEP PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 1 PLAY
VIDEO: TRUSS HANDED FROM SHUTTLE ARM TO STATION ARM PLAY
VIDEO: ARM MANEUVERS TRUSS OVER SHUTTLE WING PLAY
VIDEO: TRUSS SLOWLY LIFTED OUT OF PAYLOAD BAY PLAY
VIDEO: ATLANTIS' ARM GRAPPLES THE TRUSS PLAY
VIDEO: MONDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: ATLANTIS WELCOMED ABOARD THE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: DOCKING REPLAY FROM CAMERA ON SHUTTLE ARM PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE ATLANTIS DOCKS TO THE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: ATLANTIS' BREATH-TAKING FLIP MANEUVER PLAY
VIDEO: CREW'S CAMCORDER FOOTAGE OF EXTERNAL TANK PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED ANIMATION PREVIEWING TRUSS UNBERTHING PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED ANIMATION PREVIEWING THE DOCKING PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED ANIMATION OF PAYLOAD BAY CONFIGURATION PLAY
MORE: STS-115 VIDEO COVERAGE
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VIDEO: BRIEFING ON TANK'S PERFORMANCE DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: TANK'S ONBOARD CAMERA LIFTOFF TO SEPARATION PLAY
VIDEO: FLIGHT DIRECTOR EXPLAINS INSPECTIONS PLAY
VIDEO: SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING DIAL-UP | BROADBAND

VIDEO: LAUNCH OF ATLANTIS! PLAY
VIDEO: SHEDDING FOAM MAY HAVE HIT ATLANTIS PLAY
VIDEO: ONBOARD VIEW OF EXTERNAL TANK SEPARATION PLAY
VIDEO: INSIDE MISSION CONTROL DURING LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO: STATION CREW TOLD VISITORS EN ROUTE PLAY
VIDEO: HOUSTON RADIOS DEBRIS REPORT TO CREW PLAY
VIDEO: POST-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: QUICK-LOOK BRIEFING ON DEBRIS DIAL-UP | BROADBAND

LAUNCH REPLAYS:
VIDEO: BEACH MOUND TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: CAMERA IN FRONT OF PAD PLAY
VIDEO: BANANA CREEK VIEWING SITE PLAY
VIDEO: VEHICLE ASSEMBLY BUILDING ROOF PLAY
VIDEO: PAD 39B SIDE PERIMETER PLAY
VIDEO: PLAYALINDA BEACH TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: PLAYALINDA BEACH ZOOM PLAY
VIDEO: UCS 23 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: UCS 11 TRACKER PLAY

VIDEO: MISSION SPECIALIST 4 STEVE MACLEAN BOARDS ATLANTIS PLAY
VIDEO: MISSION SPECIALIST 3 HEIDE PIPER BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO: MISSION SPECIALIST 2 DAN BURBANK BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO: MISSION SPECIALIST 1 JOE TANNER BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO: PILOT CHRIS FERGUSON BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO: COMMANDER BRENT JETT BOARDS PLAY

VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS EMERGE FROM CREW QUARTERS PLAY
VIDEO: CREW SUITS UP FOR LAUNCH TO SPACE PLAY
VIDEO: FINAL INSPECTION TEAM CHECKS ATLANTIS PLAY
VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS READY FOR SECOND LAUNCH TRY PLAY
MORE: STS-115 VIDEO COVERAGE
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STS-115 patch
The official crew patch for the STS-115 mission of space shuttle Atlantis to resume orbital construction of the International Space Station.
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