you
this is shuttle launch control at
t-minus three hours and holding
approximately 25 and a half minutes
remaining in this built-in hold the ice
inspection team is currently documenting
what appears to be some light frost on
main engine number one but at this time
the the team does not appear to be too
concerned about what they're seeing it
is somewhat moist today so there's a lot
of humidity and it's quite possible with
the super cold temperatures up around
the upper portion of the main engines
where the temperatures are very very
cold that some frost could form we're
going down to the astronaut quarters the
suit-up room where we see commander dick
Richards being outfitted with his helmet
or a final check of his helmet and all
the crew now in there dayglo orange
launch and entry suits there's a pilot
plane Hammond Lane Hammond a colonel in
the Air Force and an astronaut since
1984 flown previously on STS 39 a
Department of Defense mission in 1991
has a hundred and ninety nine hours in
space there's mission specialist Mark
Lee he'll be performing one of the you'd
be one of the ev8 crewmembers toward the
end of this mission
he has 288 hours in space
there is Susan Helms she is a lieutenant
colonel in the US Air Force and his
phone previously on STS 54 on a
deployment of a tracking and data relay
satellite she has a hundred and forty
three hours in space and from Portland
Oregon
Carl Meade dr. Carl Meade has say an MD
and a PhD practiced medicine in the
Medical Corps in the US Navy and there
is Jerry Linenger
on the medical corps astronaut
he's from East port or East Point
Michigan and Coronado California this is
shuttle launch control at t-minus two
hours fifty-five minutes thirty seconds
in counting and we see our STS 64
astronaut flight crew now headed down
the corridor toward the elevator in the
operations and check-out building some
of the employees at the after office
wishing them well dick Richard Blaine
Hammond
mark me jerry linenger all need and
Susan Ellen's this is shuttle launch
control at t-minus two hours 45 minutes
10 seconds and counting the Astro van
now passing the Vehicle Assembly
Building and the launch control center
now immediately on the left of the astro
van space shuttle launch director Bob
Sieck has just called for the mission
management team and Houston flight to
gather on the Weather Channel here in
about another 5 minutes or so for
another assessment of our launch
conditions we are still red for flight
through clouds greater than 4,500 feet
thick and for flight through
thunderstorm debris clouds look like
space for a meteorology group is going
to give us a go if we can take a line
right away we're go for launch request
we proceed immediately please and also a
quarter Wilco
discovery closing lock your visors and a
pitot tube low it's time to fly that's
complete I'll see you all in a week or
so sound suppression system activated
t-minus ten nine eight seven six main
engine start three engines up and
burning two one liftoff of space shuttle
discovery developing new techniques to
monitor our Earth's environment from
space Roger roll discovery Houston now
controlling Discovery's rolling on
course for a 57 degree inclination 140
nautical mile orbit on its 19th trip to
space
discovery speed already 400 miles an
hour elf to 9000 feet three engines
onboard discovery now throttling back to
two-thirds throttle to prepare the
spacecraft to pass through the area of
maximum air pressure
discovering outgoing supersonic speed
now 1023 miles an hour four miles east
at the launch pad altitude is 47,000
feet discovery go at throttle up three
engines on board discovery now back at
full throttle good hydraulic systems get
electrical systems on board one and a
half minutes since liftoff Discovery's
already burned more than two and a
quarter million pounds of propellant and
weighs less than half of what it did it
launched flight controllers now be
standing by for burnout and jettison and
the twin solid rockets Discovery's
altitude now 108 thousand feet sixteen
miles east of the Kennedy Space Center
speed now 2700 miles an hour
booster officer confirms a good
separation jettison the twin solid
rockets altitude now 167 thousand feet
32 miles east of the Kennedy Space
Center discovery traveling three
thousand four hundred miles in the
barrel again okay dick we'll work on it
Bishan
this is Mission Control Houston is
discovery now passing above the Atlantic
coast of Brazil at an altitude of about
140 nautical miles with the mission
specialist Susan Helms continuing
through a checkout of the mechanical arm
this checkout of the mechanical arm puts
its through its various drive modes its
primary and backup modes and primary and
backup powering devices to thoroughly
check it out in preparation again for
operations with the shuttle plume and
Hinzman flight experiment one great
picture is going okay we've got you to
enjoy that one we'll go ahead and
proceed temperatures to going thanks a
lot you got a great-looking payload Bay
there
okay this is position number 61 day 20
hours 1942
robot arm operator confirms that the arm
is now captured the area back on the
flight deck the procedures are pressing
on for the release of the Spartan
satellite on time at about 4:30 this
afternoon
and we're seeing the release now
spartans at 2,800 pounds satellite
shortly after they released the
satellite on its own began a
pre-programmed it's a great release
Susan
again shortly after the release the
satellite on its own I went through a
pre-programmed series of pirouettes to
ensure that it's a healthy spacecraft
once those were completed that signaled
a healthy spacecraft and allowed
Discovery's crew to slowly maneuver the
orbiter away from the satellite to a
point station-keeping point about 50
nautical miles or so away from this
Spartan where it will remain for about a
40 to 48 hour period of time prior to
rendezvous and retrieving capturing and
replacing this satellite back in the
payload Bay for their trip home from
this satellite on the Sun's corona and
the solar wind will be collected onboard
good morning space shuttle Discovery
right now your light instrument is
lazing and we're collecting great
atmospheric environmental data as we
speak and it's a great day for an
untethered spacewalk in the payload bay
discovery Houston we see you on internal
power for the EMU so you have a go for
EPA last week a plan they have access to
the galley a copy of the putting the
night come back you're on trouble
okay so Deimos the way back I'm gonna
come up about forward
smile right there
before food is installed discovered the
film of every is closed
pull it off for the translation cat
center of the page perform at aah aah
I'm gonna get mascara the bay then take
it off June
to make a fraction of the collection
this is Mission Control Houston again
mission specialist Marc Lee here
performing his first calibration flight
of this simplified aid for Evy a rescue
box shape trajectory above the payload
Bay and from the looks of it James it's
working beautifully you can see him
control himself one axis at a time are
in rotation and then along one axis at a
time and translation and it looks like a
Olympic figure skater it's a smooth
using forgery
go ahead story and you know we need to
cycle that valve an invented sir
without a question or statement yes sir
can you want us to cycle the valve and
bet is that would you like us to try
again
bless you are you looking good the
process that we see that will occur
throughout this spacewalk is recharging
the safer unit with gaseous nitrogen
which is used to propel the astronaut
around the payload Bay there is a hose
that's attached to that unit to recharge
it and that hose builds up pressure in
it as well as the backpack does and
before the hose is disconnected at me
down or the pressure needs to be
relieved from that hose all that appears
to be the problem there was it required
a little bit longer time about 30
seconds or so to bleed the pressure down
in that line before disconnecting it
from the backpack Mark Lee is now on his
way for the next step in the evaluation
of the safer unit safer against standing
for the simplified aid for evey a rescue
discovery is just beginning the 109th
orbit of the mission about to move from
daylight into darkness as it flies over
Europe on a northeasterly track getting
ready to move across Asia
mark lee now translating using the safer
unit
he's untethered from the spacecraft
he'll be translating along the left side
of the payload Bay back to the aft end
of the payload Bay and then he will turn
around and fly back to the forward
bulkhead this is part of the system
engineering evaluation he'll fire the
Jets on the backpack for one second and
then he'll Coast for about five seconds
and then conduct a one-second braking
maneuver with the unit
throughout the test the backpack has a
data recorder that will capture the
information during the performance
evaluations
hey idiot so we're ready to see your
role so you to stop but there are little
bit fast we maxed out you can back off
the arm check off the arm little one
more time let's back off a little bit by
feedback I ate it is a little bit of
coupling that's that's way too fast okay
okay part of me that's it
a to that okay good got you 59 and 60
bring your backs occasionally said I was
there must have been sixty degrees or so
we need to cut it down if this look like
rule
I'm glad it's better that was stuffy
scary okay here we go
59 at 62 59 at C could be doing with
that town there further is no okay I
play this play about fun if you told us
if you hold of that this was going to be
B y'all hey Carl meme now set to slowly
spend Marc Lee once again the first one
was a little too fast and that crews
comments were evident okay that's
perfect 25th back here 27 degrees with
nothing in the other axis tapping
beautiful discovery
our entity to do fallopian last banana
we're not gonna have a gas okay bye 51
and 55 catch it catch takes a long time
for that the damn file slavery and about
a minute and a half the sunrise fish
feel a bit of your pitch and we're right
here
fifty-one and fifty million three little
Brook an adjustment a little break this
place hey ready okay what's your room
here there you go three to fifteen in
five tap
I can hear those Jets firing
you I tap step okay you can stop them
Carl Meade mounted on the end of the
shuttles robot arm and Mark Lee
free-flying using the safer unit in its
automatic Holt mode okay I've got 300
1341 I'm gonna go once around and I'm
gonna die for them
soppy on every step
check and make sure age I didn't engage
it
39 and 53 sing you into the test
position
my neural Karl meat is slowly spinning
him in various different axes to allow
the attitude hold system to stabilize
mark Lee
see that book seven to plow six seven
you can see mark engage the attitude
hold and it brings him right to a stop
it seems to be very quickly acting just
for you guys a reference and right at
the top of the envelope now okay about
thirty and forty two Thurmond good shape
coming towards you when arm all the way
to get in the envelope
with the attitude hold engaged now the
arm is pulling away from Mark Lee and
he's demonstrating a capability of
flying across the payload Bay almost
from one wing to the other
25:38 system has been in this booth good
the way let's just bring it on down
copy it
Susan Helms now slowly lowering the two
astronauts back down into the payload
Bay views from the payload Bay as
discovery moves into sunrise crossing
the Southern Pacific Ocean beginning a
northeasterly track in step 16 vent the
gm2 until the Reg pressure is less than
50 and then you'll press on from there
and what that will do will seal off the
line going to the orbiter step 20 in
order to set up safer for the next
recharge depressurize d press the lock
button and rotate the coupler clockwise
to the open to flow position on the QD
attached to the srs and reattach the TM
gene okay agnus quick disconnect coupler
a tester for commanders will see little
bit but I just go out over there all
right that's the first a lot but
counterclockwise to our 783 to de close
the flow position mark Lee now with a
recharge backpack on his way for the
final evaluation in his assessment of
the safer unit this is a fight flight
qualification evaluation or a flight
quality evaluation
he will assess how precisely he can
maneuver with the safer unit following
the path of the robot arm
this is again an evaluation to determine
how precise this safer unit can fly this
final evaluation for mark lee is one of
the most important points during the
safer evaluation to ensure that FLE free
flying astronauts can maneuver in very
tight spaces as may be required around a
future International Space Station
this time as you're looking at right now
great view of the elbow camera down here
about the beach and other brothel camera
so we mentioned that it was it earlier
the only comment that that is that I
could say all of you all of my
classmates at the 20th reunion at their
Force Academy I wish I could be there
but as you see some have got a fall high
cover for all of you well I think that's
staying exactly where I want to be so
this is this is working really good
working great from in here mark
you
throughout the evaluation Markley will
be heard reading numbers basically
giving remaining nitrogen available in
the safer unit and the reports from a VA
officer sue rainwater here in Mission
Control are that he's actually using
less nitrogen for this process than was
trained for the battery power usage is
about right on the money as to what the
predictive --zz were pre-flight
35 and 21 topic
markley now very carefully rounding the
corner the elbow position on the robot
arm making the final turn coming back
headed down toward the payload Bay and
Kyle looking at the picture you can see
how relatively easy it seems to be to
fly he can take his his hand off the
controller and the motion continues in a
very smooth way it's like a bit like
taking your hand off the steering wheel
in this case if the motion recedes
straight ahead very smooth Joe did you
get the same sense when you flew the MMU
of having command over that unit feeling
the full control over the
maneuverability like it appears that
Mark Lee is having here absolutely it's
quite it's it's easy to can control in a
very precise way it's a considerably
more complicated than this and that
you're controlling both the rotation and
the translation at the same time I say
complicated it's more versatile one
couldn't move this in such a rapid way
with a lot of motions all at once but
because this is a safe - a safing device
you don't need that complexity here
okay whatever as we look at the TV
picture it's very easy to see Carl
making inputs into the hand controller
and you can then pretty much see with
your your own eyes that the unit reacts
in other words he moves once the input
goes in it's very slow very deliberate
almost dreamlike and so we were talking
just a minute ago about whether or not
you had conversations with your Co flier
on your spacewalk Dale Gardner after
Yuri VA because he was going to go out
the next day and do the same thing and
you were coming that she really didn't
debrief that much because it flew so
well and you were relating that to what
they're doing here yes
because Mark and Carl have not been
talking about how it flies differently
than they expected I think we can almost
presume that it's flying pretty much the
way they're simulators and trainers had
indicated it would you can see clearly
the pluming of the control thrusters
pluming the tether from time to time the
tether will bounce and that's the the
gaseous nitrogen being jetted out of the
controlling devices that Carl is using
to moving itself around with
very cold
okay any good work by you like these
y'all coming there
oh it looks good
34 it is roads so next day
oh
okay they're complete there
Carl Meade has completed a rotation
evaluation he's already done a
translation back to the rear part of the
payload Bay
he's now completed a rotation evaluation
and then now we'll maneuver back to the
forward bulkhead of the orbiter
discovery is tracking northeast across
the Pacific Ocean on the latter portions
of orbit 110 and Kyle we can see three
satellites in this picture there's the
satellite discovery the satellite planet
Earth satellite of the Sun and satellite
Carl me
Susan Helms maneuvering the arm now to
allow Mark Lee to climb into the
portable foot restraint attachment
device which is located on the tip of
the robot arm inside ready to your
father please this will be roll right
back wait I see when I tell you approve
it's a tribute to it buddy
stay back away it's pretty sick happy
there's no baseball going on cause I
guess I have to catch you
Jeff oh hey Josh and we're back and go
back to rescue demo position are my move
61 64 captain okay how do I pay one will
faster yeah it's a little bit fast any
off as 23 roll step three to play there
we go back with on
again this is an evaluation of the
attitude control system on the safer
unit and its ability to provide a itself
as a rescue device once Markley releases
Carl Meade and and puts him into a
gentle spin the arm is backed away and
Carl Meade is supposed to fly the safer
unit back to his his coworker on the end
of the robot arm
okay back to rescue down opposition 33%
50/50 on 41
the two astronauts using lights on their
helmets now as the orbiter moves into
darkness the last of the rescue
demonstration sequences had Markley spin
Carl Meade and a multi-axis rotation
then Susan helm slowly moves the robot
arm across the orbiter while Mark Lee
flies the safer almost from wing to wing
again to demonstrate the capabilities of
the safer unit as a rescue device should
an astronaut become untethered from
which is just approaching the five hour
mark
that's half an hour ago the said of your
cells that I'm going to get that far and
the fuel tray
using for Carl hold up yeah at 18
percent battery sir we suggest you start
to prison approach from your present
position
those words to Carl Meade are that the
battery power is getting a little low
and so instead of following that profile
back down to the shoulder joint he's
going to go ahead and fly the precision
approach to the aft flight deck windows
of the orbiter clearly in view is the
primary payload on the mission the lidar
in space technology experiment housed in
the forward portion of Discovery's
payload Bay and Kyle we can see on his
his forearm there the electronic
checklist that he's been evaluating or
will evaluate the other checklist more
normal the one I was used to is is on
his other arm and you see the pages of
it flapping in the breeze from time to
time yeah remember a little while ago we
were noticing or you were noticing that
the actually the jet firings on the
backpack were fluttering the the paper
checklist on his other arm
guidance navigation and control officer
reports commander dick Richards is now
manually flying the spacecraft as it
contends it's turn around the heading
alignment cylinder again an imaginary
cylinder around which it will fly a 330
degree left turn to align with runway oh
four cylinder created by the microwave
scan beam landing system in place at
Edwards Air Force Base
scurries out to 30,000 feet
discovery Houston we show you slightly
low at the 180 commander dick Ridge
Richards continuing a right turn around
the heading alignment cylinder created
by the micro you scan beam landing
system at Edwards altitude is now 22,000
feet
discovery on energy at the 90 call
indicating that discovery is right on
course and on track for its touchdown
touchdown this now about two minutes
away
scary's altitude 18,000 feet
airspeed 260 knots discovery completing
a left turn to align with runway o4
discovery now
discovery now aligning with the center
line performing a subsonic maneuver test
as part of a test objective on the
mission
altitude 6500 feet discovery on glide
slope on centerline winter now zero
seven zero at four peak ten call
indicating Discovery's descent is right
on target and commander dick Richards is
aligned with the center of runway au for
altitude 3,000 feet airspeed 300 knots
altitude 600 feet
landing gears down and locked
main gear touchdown
drag chute deploy nose gear touchdown
discovery rolling out on runway Oh for
at Edwards Air Force Base California
after 177 trips around the world in 11
days and four and a half million miles
the question was have you seen any they
don't know can you tell if Kevin payload
2 is on we can tell Kevin fiddled Maine
a is on and that's all and if you give
me a time sometimes I'll check for any
anomalous data and I get a time plane ok
I thought we'd turn that on in the post
insertion somewhere but I may be
mistaken
oh the busses you're right the cabin
payload bus has been on a long time but
the action 5 X action that might have
caused the spike was when we first tried
to power on boom bus 1 ok
so we needed a buy one day two hours ten
minutes that has that's a little lead
time for configuration positioning or
whatever my tank oh yes sir we're back
on the flight deck crew has a system in
panels so they've got it for the moment
well let them do what they want
our Mazzello over how we know hover
like GNC yes sir flight wearing a nine
Auto burn they are and look like they're
working TCS activation okay I know and
we're ready
let it go yes we are configured to take
Diego to weigh copy we're two minutes to
attainder cell OS we will get you
through
Diego Garcia and 22 hours and 48 minutes
he sees an initial drop in pressure
which indicates the toggle valve is
closed he needs to continue to vent for
about 30 seconds to ensure that the hose
is entirely bled down that's no seizures
regulator's regulating on the recharge
hose pressure not on the tank that's
what we need to get across to know
what's better inside than it did in the
Witter
I go back and go back to it again all
the difference move let's go up stick to
full time this could be tough
Oh a VA that was a double with a full
twist every staff just called the 2.73
chop roll early I'm presenting roll your
net
OAH okay then Carl we are thinking about
your battery status slider being used to
expedite approach yep looks like just uh
put on put in an extra hole security so
much portrait Mikey stomach that son
last but we're getting there
discovery Houston we're with you on the
West Nile it looked like a good burn
let's head on boyfriend
break iPhone
sure
yogurt issue God's been able Auto
literally copy ground speed enable auto
load really
these congratulations on an outstanding
oh you guys did a fantastic job up there
bps no no because we have four
well thanks dick we appreciate those
words seem like you were reading our
minds most of the time but we were glad
to help you out when we could