Internal NASA email from STS-114 Crew and JSC Personnel Regarding Inflight RCC Inspection
Editor’s note: the senders and recipients have been deleted from this email exchange.
Comment from someone@nasa.gov familiar with this topic with regard to this email exchange: “we are 12 weeks or so from launch and we still do not know how we’ll conduct these surveys on-orbit.”
From:
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005
To: STS-114 Crew member and several others
Cc: STS-114 Crew and many others
Subject: RE: TPS inspection timeline for RCC panels #8,-10
Don’t let this spin you up. I’ll be talking with Steve Poulos. I’ll be shocked if we do not execute as I wrote in my note.
It’s never the rocket science that makes life hard for us.
—–Original Message—–
From:
To: STS-114 Crew member and several others
Cc: STS-114 Crew and many others
Sent: 2/9/2005
Subject: Re: TPS inspection timeline for RCC panels #8,-10
I wish you would have discussed this with us prior to sending this Email. I do not agree with LCS being prime since we are doing a safety only cert on it prior to STS-114. We’ll work with you on the KU issues.
—–Original Message—–
From:
To: STS-114 Crew Member
CC: STS-114 Crew and many others
Sent: Wed Feb 09 2005
Subject: RE: TPS inspection timeline for RCC panels #8,-10
This is a topic of discussion with program managment Friday morning. Nothing has been decided yet on any new RCC inspection criteria. Thus, we do not yet have timeline impacts. Just threats.
MOD intends to revise all FD2 RCC inspection to the LCS. For the nose cap, as we’ve discussed at the JOP, this was driven by the 3 hr timeline for the nose cap using LDRI. DX2 thinks we will have back in the 90 min box using LCS.
We have recently been told of a restrictive SRMS and OBSS Ku radiation constraint which will result in all starboard WLE LDRI data being played back. With the push we already had on DTV downlink, this will break us for LDRI downlink. With the recent discussions regarding WLE inspection criteria, switching to LCS kills two birds. It allows us to downlink all RCC inspection data with no DTV playback (thus overnight and via ISS if necessary), and it gives us the highest resolution possible.
I’ll let you know what part of the the 3.5 hr we have scheduled on FD4 we end up dedicating to scheduled RCC inspections, if any. That will only happen if we do, in fact, reduce the criteria.
We can also then discuss crew and FCT training. MOD has discussed it a high level, and we’re waiting now for the decision I hope we’ll get on Friday. As a minimum, the March long sim will have LCS inspection of the starboard WLE and nose cap. It will probably also use the LDRI for the port WLE. All will be available for crew training before flight, as will the high resolution, static LCS surveys of panels 8-10 if we plan them.
Terri Murphy’s team is aware of our plans for LCS and is working to have analytical support ready.
—–Original Message—–
From: STS-114 Crew Member
To:
Cc: STS-114 Crew and many others
Sent: 2/9/2005
Subject: TPS inspection timeline for RCC panels #8,-10
At the OBSS DCR yesterday, Steve Poulos mentioned the TPS inspection PRD will be changed per Don Curry’s updated critical damage criteria and that he will request MOD to conduct inspection of RCC panels #8,9, and 10 at the apex area to 0.020″ size detection of surface damage on STS-114. Since we have only one STS-114 integrated sim left for FD2 TPS inspection, I, along with the CB folks involved in the RTF activities, would like to understand the MOD’s plan how to incorporate this additional RCC inspection into the timeline. I’d appreciate if you could let us know your thoughts. Also, please let us know if there is anything we can assist your LCS procedure development such as in “PV”ing.
Talking with the 114 crew and the CB participants at the DCR, the following concerns came up.
* FD2 will not be able to accommodate more TPS inspection in addition to the nose cone inspection with LCS and the left/right wing leading edge RCC inspection with LDRI.
* 4 hr slot is currently allocated on FD4 for tile “target” inspection. The priority of inspection (tile “target” or RCC #8-10) for this slot is not clear. If RCC panel 8-10 apex and lower area inspection is added on the FD4 slot, whatever cannot be done on FD4 (tile “target” inspection and/or RCC #8-10) needs to be done some other time such as on FD6.
* The dress rehearsal sim on 3/2-3/4 does not plan to have the additional RCC panel #8-10 inspection with LCS.
* Currently there is no planned integrated training for crew and ground data analysis team for LCS data processing.
Thanks!
p.s.
CB robotics branch will get together with Quincy Harp and Jeff Sugar next week to review the proposed new LCS inspection procedures for the nose cone inspection before it is used in 114 crew training.
