this television view from the mid deck
of columbia
coming through another developmental
test objective being carried for the
first time on board sts 73 referred to
as high pack the highly packed digital
television that allows up to six
different channels to be downlinked to
the earth allowing the researchers for
the u.s microgravity laboratory to view
the result of multiple experiments
simultaneously in this television view
again being sent down to the earth
through that high pack television system
the surface driven con
surface tension driven convection
experiment is a cylindrical container
that is filled with a silicon oil
this container can then be heated on the
surface by either a
carbon dioxide laser
or heated in the center of the chamber
in case you wanted to
reduce that
rotation more rapidly than just letting
it die out you can always of course go
the opposite direction and try to slow
it with a torque and then go back to an
intermediate setting
okay
but i promise i'm not being impatient
well i'm always willing to hear
suggestions
say something for fred a heads up we're
going to change the ir imager range for
a moment and then we'll switch it back
okay copy that and the thermistor is
in between a couple marks so let's make
that 0
six three five
zero six three five
we copy zero six three five
space web huntsville for fred
yeah we've got goody tv uh audio and
visual now
the voice now on the ga tv channel
that's clear that's a matter of fact
it's probably even a little more clear
than the uh degree
okay excellent we'll let's uh start into
our discussion this morning
we have here the uh falcon team on orbit
3 rob kelso the flight director sitting
right behind me
and we just thought we'd talk a little
bit about the status of the flight this
morning
it's a pretty quiet
day down here in mcc they're not not a
lot of problems
being worked as you know and i thought
i'd just ask you about how
the routine was settling in on here your
third uh full day
in orbit can you tell me how
you've arranged the sleeping quarters up
there for the duration
yeah that's a that's a pretty easy one
there we've got the sleep station set up
so uh
there's four stations and seven people
so three of us hot rack and being a navy
person
that means that
three of the sleep stations are almost
always in use except for the turnover
periods and then the commander has his
own sleep station so he has kind of a
locker he can throw his stuff in as well
do you find that during the shift
handovers you're getting a lot of time
to uh
pass news back and forth or do you just
sort of pass like ships in the night
there
we're getting better i guess the first
handover seemed
maybe a little bit rushed but the last
couple days it seems like we've had
plenty of time for the turnover actually
i'll let stocks answer that for you
because he's doing the majority of the
turnover work
as the awake time split sort of uh at
the beginning and end of each shift so
that the overlaps are
evenly split or they all front loaded or
unloaded
well of course the beginning of the
flight we were pretty
pretty front loaded i guess
the
but we set it up that way on purpose due
to our sleep shifts now uh we have a
real nice setup two hours supreme post
sleep for everybody and this morning we
even got together for a little crew
meeting for about 10 minutes during
handover
copy that and uh
how are the meals working out are you
able to take a break together in the
middle of the day for the whole shift
we managed to do that every once in a
while but but rather than eating uh
according to the plant times we're all
sort of grazing as the day goes on uh
probably four or five meals a day
i'm sure rob would like that
that's about the way we're eating down
here uh sucks
yeah can't eat too much
well food equals sleep
rob's going to give you a status relax
you see on the team here
good morning socks i feel like your ties
well we uh
as you can probably tell
this is our first shift with you after
after the great launch you guys had the
other day we worked all those uh four or
five pre-launch shifts and so it's uh
extra special for us to come in this
morning and and have you already flying
and doing such a great job
yeah those pre-launch ships are tough
i've worked a couple of those and it
feels really good when the orbiter goes
off
and you get to go home
the uh
old flying over houston the last couple
days you could probably tell we had some
tremendous weather in houston and of
course this weekend was the wings over
houston and the
navy and the blue angels did just
spectacular
with some
incredible acrobatics
so the navy
had a proud day this weekend in houston
all right well great rob we love
watching the blue angels sorry we missed
them
they're always a good show we got some
good pictures of houston i think when we
were flying over and for the first time
i was actually able to spot jsc the air
was so clear i couldn't find my house
though
well we're uh looking at the plot board
here looks like you're coming up on
another pass in a few minutes over
over the houston area so maybe you'll
have another opportunity for that
okay well we'll give it a shot
the only thing that we're kind of
tracking here socks uh we're still
looking at the main landing gear tire
pressures and temperatures with the poor
door
slightly closed and
the pre-flight predictions and the
real-time data are running pretty close
and it and it looks like at least for
the next few days that we're thermally
in good shape and
we're going to be talking with harry
chang and the thermal people a little
later today but
things look like that's going uh well
and as we had predicted
all right rob well that's good news
uh socks and rumble if you look behind
rob here on the screen you can see rich
jackson the guy who got you off the
ground the other day after uh many
attempts and he's happier than anybody i
think to see you guys in orbit
and and you'll notice you made that
comment
yeah where is your tie i thought
everybody was supposed to wear a tie in
mcc
i think we made an exception to the
dress code today for uh rich
that's why jackson's not part of he
deserves a break after all those launch
attempts
he copies that and the room just had a
good laugh when he teased him about his
tie
hey i got one question for you rich when
we took off the other day
i called in the wall and i didn't hear
any response and then i called the whole
program
and didn't hear anything the first call
we heard was go throttle up just
wondered if uh if you guys had heard my
calls or if maybe we were transmitting
through the cloud or the plume or
something
uh socks uh the word from rich here is
that we may have just had a misconfig uh
on the ground system down here for the
first two calls we heard all of yours
crystal clear and obviously uh we didn't
get up to you until after the throttle
up call
okay that's why we weren't gonna turn
around or anything
not at that point
um
the camera angle at liftoff showed uh
showed the um
view straight onto the orbiter from the
end of the flame trench and you guys
were buried in a big white steam cloud
for about the first
five to ten seconds of the launch and
then columbia just came up right out of
the cloud it was really a dramatic uh
way to send you guys off
yeah we saw that
in the uplink video on the kca it was
really impressive we appreciate it
getting it
well how's the view been from uh orbit
uh i know your attitude points the
payload bay uh windows down at the earth
and i wonder if you've uh
seen any uh
particular favorites of yours on your
circuits around the globe
well this attitude makes some things a
little bit hard um the
payload bay door sort of obscures the
terrain that's coming in
so it's uh we have to really think ahead
if we want to try and catch any nader
shots what seems to work best is looking
north of track at the overhead windows
and getting getting things at 20 or 30
degrees
i've been amazed how much we see to the
north though
especially
lake michigan chicago
lake erie and cleveland
we've got great views of those
and spain and europe have been pretty
fantastic too
yeah the indians are coming back to play
in cleveland with the braves i guess
they're down 2-zip right now
so you'll be able to watch some of the
night game action probably later this
week
any tropical storms left in the atlantic
we should watch out for
well we haven't seen any of them
it's amazing i think it's finally dying
down clouds out there seems like there's
more clouds over africa than i remember
from previous flights lots of big storms
i hope they're getting a little rain
over there
it's been great in houston we've had a
great high pressure system sitting over
us and the weather's been fantastic it's
a
shame that you're in orbit and not
enjoying the few weeks of good fall
weather we get down here
want to trade
yes that's a real shame
we've got some pretty good weather on
board though
clear skies and
the temperature is just perfect now
since we adjusted the temperature
controller so uh we're having plenty of
fun up here i i think it'll be okay if
we missed a little bit of the houston
fall
it sounds like a great environment to
work and you've got a lot of room to
rattle around in
and
it's got a great team obviously meshing
together up there you guys hit the
ground running and uh we've been very
very uh
uh pleased with how well the timeline's
been working out
you guys have been hitting everything
right on the on time and it seems like
the payload ops as well as the orbiter
ops have been extra smooth this flight
well good uh i think
that
is due in
a big measure to the folks who did the
planning pre-flight the paces seemed
just about right for all of us on board
i think another thing that
helped us was that we were just a little
bit lucky
having to get five new guys who are just
natural space people they're really
looking good up here
and that's obvious from what we can see
uh the laboratory ops in the back
are just like you would imagine in a
laboratory down here on the ground we're
tweaking making some fine adjustments
but the overall scope of the experiment
seems to be uh working along just fine
and i'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more
of that in the years ahead so you guys
are really uh showing us what it's going
to be like in just a couple years with
uh alpha
well good deal i think this two-way
video capability is going to be
something neat that they'll enjoy too
it's really nice to see your faces and
see your lips move uh while you're
talking to us there's always a little
bit more that can be carried in
expressions and
and hand motions then you can capture
over the undergrounds
that's true socks and we just got a call
from
moscow and mission control over there
with jim weatherby this morning and
everybody's watching your flight with
great interest on that side
all the folks in our office
over there are watching uh
73 and they're very pleased and proud of
your performance
well great glad to hear it uh
pass them our best wishes
and i know they're glad to get us in the
air so that we can get 74 launched here
and get those guys flying up to the
mirror to say hello
that's right
we're looking forward to that as well
but i think we've got another two weeks
of fun with you folks before that
happens and
we'll be ready for 74 in time on the
11th
yeah we're looking forward to the rest
of the flight
don't think you can spend too much time
in orbit i know i can i can't get enough
of the view
and the floating around
and we just continue to feel better and
better up here so let's hope it keeps
going that way in columbia see the guys
on the ground who prepped this ship sure
did a great job it's just coming right
along
i know people say things about colombia
about better being jinxed and having a
lot of problems but you sure wouldn't
know it here from our point of view up
on orbit it is just a super spaceship
she may be the oldest ship in the fleet
but it's obvious she's been maintained
very well and uh
it's the cleanest ship
that you could hope for on orbit on this
flight that's for sure
yeah that's right
shoot tom what's been fun talking to you
guys but i guess we better get back off
to work uh
you got enough uh video and
information uh for the
the atp guys
yeah if you'll stand by one i just want
to do one more uh config test here and
we'll
wrap it up after that standby one
all right
columbia houston just to close off gatv
i'm now transmitting on air to ground
one could you give us a report on the
voice quality
yeah
it's not unclear
but it's uh not as good as what we had a
minute ago
it's just a little bit
more grainy
if that's a decent description
i understand some of that is probably
due to my throat this morning but we'll
try this config out again later in the
flight i hope and on other flights with
the families this uh capability is going
to be great for us thanks a lot for
talking to us and spending some time on
the air and we'll talk to you on the
regular loops
yeah it was a lot of fun and you're
right this would be really neat with our
families
bye-bye
space lab huntsville for kathy no need
to respond but we are currently waiting
on approval to tips up the
ifm to shim the x-axis video camera to
correct this problem where it's
currently slightly below center
and as soon as that gets tipped up to
you
you can go ahead and start but we want
you to start this before you finish the
rp1
instrument bay activation
in space lab huntsville for i'll be
advised we have ku band coverage back
and svdc really likes that image
copy that
now as we heard with the ku band signal
capability we're again
back into bringing multiple channels of
video to the ground
and we have two types of video coming
from the surface tension driven
convection experiment currently
in the module on tvc2 with your
permission
this live video now showing us some
dramatic gyrations by a drop of liquid
which
is currently deployed in the drop
physics module
and
now we're taking a 90 degree different
view of it it's
shaped much like a pancake now uh
oscillating uh in uh
one dimension primarily in uh
said you can reduce the z drive level to
eight volts if you want
and so below the spacecraft we have
basically broad ocean areas with a few
scattered high clouds
colombia
on its 51st orbit now
out of what's planned as a
255 orbit mission
and
flying uh
continuing to
orbit the earth in a gravity gradient
attitude where the tail of the
spacecraft is towards earth and the nose
uh remains pointed towards deep space
and now with a little camera switching
we can take a look at
its uh payload bay door the one which is
uh partially closed
that payload bay door being uh directed
be the one which is in the
velocity vector orientation
hey
new view new type of view since this is
the first mission where we routinely
have been keeping the payload bay door
partly
closed
like this