Preflight
Interview: Curt Brown
The
STS-95 Crew Interview with Curt Brown, commander
STS-95 shapes up to be one of the busiest flights in shuttle
history, also one of the most historic for obvious reasons: your
thoughts on the mission and its complexity?
Well, 95 is
a very complex mission, we do have a lot of payload activities --
about 83 the last I counted. Some of those will be operated from
the ground, some of them will be operated by the crew, but it is
a very tightly-packed mission with an ambitious timeline. We want
to go up and be able to accomplish as much as we can, without any
really dead time; so we plan as much as we can get into the mission.
I think you're going to see that's the way missions are going to
be in the future with the shuttle program. We're doing deploy and
retrieve operations, we're doing a lot of science, real hard-core
science, in the payload bay in the SPACEHAB -- it's just a big team
working together, and I think that's the way you're going to see
it as the International Space Station progresses. It'll be a tremendous
number of different operations happening all the time, and 95 is
kind of an exposure to that multifaceted flight.
Speaking
of the space station, between the science and the proximity to the
start of station operations, do you see your flight as the real
stepping-stone to that program?
Well, true,
we are just before the first flight to start the assembly of the
space station, but we also have a large comparison in the space
station era even without looking at just the flight order. We have
an international crew -- we'll have the first Spaniard to fly in
space, Pedro Duque; we have Chiaki Mukai, her second flight, from
Japan; so we have an international team. We have a lot of experiments
ranging from protein crystal growth to life sciences to hard-core
science. So we have basically everything that you'll see on the
International Space Station, other than we won't be staying up there
for four, or five, or six months; we'll be a nine-day mission. We'll
be a little bit higher on 95, we're goin' up to 300 nautical miles
above the Earth for some Hubble testing. So we definitely have a
wide variety of activities, and like I said, we are going to see
a lot of flights like this in the future when we start looking at
space station.
This
flight is very much underscored by the diversity of scientific experiments
-- to get a little bit more in detail, discuss the multidisciplinary
nature of this mission in terms of the types of science that you
all will be covering.
Well, I'll
try to give you just a kind of generic overview. We have some operational
objectives -- the deploy and retrieval of the SPARTAN; also another
little satellite we're deploying, which is basically an operational
type. The SPARTAN will be conducting solar science, looking at solar
winds while it's free-flying. We have a bridge structure called
International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker, which is going to
be looking out at deep space -- at different objects in the extreme
ultraviolet range of the spectrum. In the SPACEHAB we have almost
everything you could imagine -- plant biology, which Pedro will be
operating. A furnace that will be looking at producing new metals,
new alloys, and the way that works in microgravity. Trying to learn
better how we can do that on the ground and take advantage of some
of the properties that microgravity give us. Senator Glenn will
be busy collecting a lot of life science data on the aging process
through an experiment called Protein Turnover During Spaceflight.
Looking at how your body actually handles protein buildup and breakdown
differently while you're in space versus on the ground, and how
that affects, or how that's related to, aging. We just have a tremendous
operation, plus we're also testing some systems that we will be
using on International Space Station. Some of our vision systems
which are artificial -- a virtual reality way of working in space
without being able to look out the window directly at what you're
manipulating.
The
primary objective of the mission obviously is the deployment and
retrieval of the SPARTAN satellite. Discuss what your crew will
be doing during the deployment and the initial separation from the
satellite -- give us a walk-through as to how that's all going to
work.
Well, the actual
deployment operation will have a four-person team, and I will be
watching the satellite out of the overhead windows as we actually
deploy it and while waiting for it to maneuver. It'll do an initialization
maneuver to let us know that it's alive. But getting the satellite
to that position will be a team effort. Steve Robinson will be my
prime arm operator, we call that R1, and Scott Parazynski will be
the backup, R2. They will be working together taking the SPARTAN
spacecraft from its cradle in the payload bay, moving it up, initializing
the spacecraft, which is very important, and getting it ready to
be released. Once they get in the correct attitude and everything's
ready to go, then we'll release it and back away. Steve Lindsey,
my pilot, will be sitting in the Commander's seat, and he will be
taking care of the orbiter -- changing the autopilot, changing the
way we maneuver, changing our attitude. Then once it's a free flyer,
as we move away from it, people change jobs
then we turn into
more of a data-gathering group. We will take photos, use a hand-held
laser to shoot out the window at the SPARTAN to get range and range
rate from the SPARTAN -- Scott Parazynski will be doing that along
with Steve Robinson. And we'll be doing a few maneuvers after we
release the spacecraft -- we'll be separating away from it, and
then later on doing another little maneuver to gain the correct
distance from it so the SPARTAN can open up its doors and start
the science.
Your
pilot, Steve Lindsey, was on board Columbia last November when things
did not go right with the SPARTAN. What measures have been taken,
both from a crew training and preparedness perspective and from
the spacecraft itself, to ensure that the spacecraft will be activated
properly?
Well, anytime
we run into some anomalies, or problems, we obviously learn something.
And that's one thing neat about the space program: we never quit
learning -- and we did learn a lot from STS-87. We probably needed
some different specification requirements for our end effector camera,
so we have a new camera on the end of the arm which works in all
light conditions. They had a little trouble on 87 with the camera
blooming and not giving a good image back to the crew, so it made
flying and manipulating the arm and the grapple a little bit tougher
than normal. We've also looked at the SPARTAN software and re-engineered
it a little bit
changed some things so the SPARTAN spacecraft
itself will give us more feedback when it's ready to go. On STS-87
we sent a few commands to the SPARTAN and assumed they all got there
-- which they did not. So now, after the SPARTAN receives a command,
it's going to communicate that back to us. That's pretty much the
major changes that we made; a little bit on the camera requirements,
a little bit on the software, and obviously, as I said, we learned
a lot from 87, so we've trained a little bit differently.
After
two days of scientific operations for SPARTAN, it will be time to
pick it up again and put it back down in the cargo bay for the trip
back home. In terms of going back and getting it, how far will you
be separated from SPARTAN? Walk us through the ultimate retrieval
day.
We will maneuver
out in front of SPARTAN about 40 to 60 miles or so, and that depends
on a bunch of different things. But we'll be out in front of it
a number of miles, so it can do its science. We don't want to contaminate
any of its optics or get in the way, and the orbiter, if you get
too close it can do that. So we'll be stationkeeping out in front
to allow SPARTAN to gather the science that it's required to get,
and then we'll start. We do a little burn to raise our orbit up
a little bit so that we start moving back towards the spacecraft
At some point we'll actually fly over the top of SPARTAN and
have SPARTAN between us and the Earth and we'll coast back to about
eight, nine miles or so behind SPARTAN. At that point we'll do a
little burn to basically stop our separation or our travel behind
the aircraft, and then start a closure into the final rendezvous.
We call that the TI burn or terminal initiate burn but that burn
will start us heading into SPARTAN to do the final rendezvous. We'll
do three or four or so midcourse little correction burns to make
sure we're on a good trajectory; during that time we'll be picking
up information about the spacecraft from our radar, its range and
range rate, and any movement to make sure our navigation is good.
As we move in closer we'll we'll basically be rendezvousing from
underneath SPARTAN. In other words, we'll be between the SPARTAN
spacecraft and Earth, we'll be coming up what we term the R-bar
and moving up to the rendezvous position to grapple the SPARTAN.
We are doing some VGS tasks, which is a a Video Guidance System
that we'll be testing from about 600 feet on in to a couple hundred
feet and then we'll back out; we'll be doing that if we have the
propellant to allow us to do that to gain some test data on that
system. And then finally we'll go on in to the grapple range and
and again, Steve Robinson will use the robotic arm to grapple SPARTAN
and put it back in the cargo bay.
Other
attached tests will follow with SPARTAN I believe in the next day
or so that follows its actual retrieval so SPARTAN serves a variety
of purposes for you and your crewmates, doesn't it?
That's true.
We we obviously deploy SPARTAN to get the critical solar science
that it's designed for, but also we've attached numerous dots on
the target; you'll see those as the spacecraft's out flying around.
And we'll use those dots to to get information, actually the dots
on the payload, we'll move the payload around in relation to some
cameras and and different sensors, and that will be the virtual
reality system that we'll be testing, the Space Vision System that
we'll be testing, and hopefully getting as much data as we can because
STS-88, the flight right after ours, will be using that system on
the assembly of the first parts of the space station.
You
touched on it earlier -- one of the major payloads in the cargo
bay is a suite of instruments that will be tested for a variety
of reasons for the third servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope
a couple of years down the road. You're not a stranger to flying
at high inclinations, but flying at this altitude should be quite
a treat for you and your crewmates I would think.
Well I'll have
to be honest with you. There's one drawback to this flight, and
I say this jokingly, obviously, it's a low inclination flight --
this is only 28-and-a-half degrees. All my other flights have been
39 or higher, so they've all been high-inclination, I've gotten
to see a lot of the world, so I've been very, very fortunate in
my past
flights. This flight will be a 28-and-a-half degree inclination,
because we had to put all our energy into getting the altitude.
We're going up to 300 nautical miles above the Earth's surface;
the normal shuttle mission is somewhere around a hundred and sixty,
maybe a hundred and seventy nautical miles, but we will be going
up to 300 nautical miles which should give us a view of the Earth
that I haven't experienced before; it should be more round, more
of a globe, the horizon -- the limb -- should be more arched so
that will be quite a treat. And the reason we're going up there
is for the HOST payload, the suite of instruments that we're testing
for the next Hubble servicing mission. But we'll be taking it up
to the radiation environment, the magnetic environment, the thermal
environment, that that equipment needs to be tested in, make sure
it's going to be good for the Hubble mission.
Now
in the summer of 1997, on your last flight aboard Discovery STS-85,
you tested another complement of experiments called the International
Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker. It's back with you again -- some
of the same experiments, some different; what is this, this thing
in the cargo bay, this truss and all that's that's involved with
the so-called IEH?
Well, it's
it's actually a suite of pretty complex, hard-core science-type
experiments; again it'd take a long time to explain them all, but
we flew it on STS-85, as you mentioned, it's out of the Goddard
Space Flight Center and a lot of really great folks up there to
put all those instruments together, and they worked like a champ
on STS-85 and we're looking forward to the same performance on 95.
What they're doing is they're looking out at objects in space and
looking at their emissions in the extreme ultraviolet spectrum.
And in that spectrum we can gather data about the objects that we
cannot get from Earth because the atmosphere of the Earth filters
out that spectrum. So the only way you can get that information
is to do it up above the Earth's surface so, it's kind of a, a neat
system because it's a bridge structure and you can put a suite of
different instruments on board, and then we use the orbiter as a
platform and point the instruments at the different objects in deep
space and gather the data. So it's a very robust system in that
you can get a lot of data for not much effort and and we're glad
to have them on board again.
John
Glenn -- your name will be linked in the history books as his commander,
thirty-six years after he etched his name in human spaceflight history
as the first American to orbit the Earth. When you found out that
you were going to command this mission, what was your initial reaction
and your thoughts on what his place in history is, and what this
flight was about to evolve into?
I have to admit
I was very excited when I found out that I was being considered,
and then finally got assigned STS-95. But let me be real honest
with you: any of the commanders in the office could've taken this
mission and done a fantastic job with it, so I think in, in all
honesty, I think that I just got lucky and and anyone in the office
could have done a good job, so let me make sure that everybody understands
that first. But then we make a little joke about this: we say either
it's congratulations or condolences, because congratulations meaning,
"Hey, you got another flight!" and all that stuff, but
the condolences a little bit because of the the attention of the
media, which I think is good, don't get me wrong there, but that
is not a small distraction from my crew training. We have we have
done a lot of media activity between February, when we had our first
press conference, and and up to the launch standpoint. And I think
it's very important that we do that and we get the word out; I wish
every flight in the shuttle program and the International Space
Station program, I wish all flights were covered like this because
this is what we need. The American people, the people of the world,
need to understand what we're doing in the space program, and unfortunately
we don't get the coverage every flight. This one is special because
we have Senator Glenn on board, and so we're thrilled to have that
coverage, we're thrilled to have him on board. How I feel about
being the commander of Senator Glenn -- I'll be honest with you,
I kind of put that aside, I don't think much about it I know that's
probably a boring answer but I try to keep that separate and my
job is organize the crew and plan for the mission, get the science
done and when I get back I'll kind of think about what's really
happened and put the emotional side into it. But we're trying to
focus and keep the crew focused and go do the mission, but it's
not always easy to keep everyone focused with the media.
Probably
not; uh, does that also place additional pressure -- not necessarily
that you're not focused all the time as you'd like to be -- but
that because there's so much attention, because so many people are
watching, because so many people will be at the Cape and here during
the flight that things have to go right, that you feel an extra
sense of responsibility?
Well, I don't
think I worry about things having to go right. I have a very, very
capable crew, a very good group of people, and we have a lot of
payloads on board we've trained a lot. They've stayed focused --
I'm not sure it's due to my guidance or anything -- but they're
a good crew and they stayed focused and they've trained hard and
we've taken the Senator from Capitol area whenever we could to get
him down here to train, we've worked him very hard, so I think everybody's
ready to go fly and I think we'll do a good job. And I don't really
worry about not doing a good job because, again, I think everyone's
professional, ready to go; I just want to make sure everyone stays
focused and, and does the job and not get caught up in the excitement
of the event. I've not had to worry about that too much, but that
is one of my concerns when when we were training during the past
six, eight months.
You
know a lot of historians will say you may not like what we write
but you can't stop the flow of history. From an historic perspective,
what is the significance of John Glenn returning to space at this
moment in time, as a link between the origins of human spaceflight
and a bridge to what lies ahead with the International Space Station?
Well, you know,
I think, I think that's a personal comment, or a personal observation,
because, you know, each person is touched different way by events
in, in their life. When I see Senator Glenn, you know, I was about
five to six years old when he flew his first flight and I remember
that, I remember the newspapers because my dad was very interested
in science and the space program and so I remember that. So for
me personally it's something that I will obviously never forget
and it's a big, significant event in my life. Back when we were
trying to get the space program off the ground Senator Glenn did
something that got us going. You know, it got us on the track to
go to the Moon and land on the Moon. We were looking for successes
at that time and he was the first American to orbit Earth and that
was what we needed and away we went. Not to parallel it too much,
but we've been flying shuttles for a number of years now and International
Space Station's coming up, and in a few months we'll be launching
our first shuttle to go up and start assembling the space station.
It's really nice to have this kind of attention on the space program,
and Senator Glenn's, in a way, kind of helping us take that next
step -- to go on to the International Space Station era, and if
we can get the enthusiasm about our International Space Station
like we had during the early years of NASA. it's going to really,
really help us, and so I'm hoping everyone will get excited about
that. I'm not sure everyone knows about what we're doing, so I think
this will help get it out to the media, get it out to the general
public that we are taking a major, major step here in the next few
months to start assembling the station and put people on board and
start work. And it's not always easy for the general public to understand
why that's important, but as we learn more and more about our space
environment and how to do things better in space, those spinoffs,
those rewards, come back to the general public.
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