Preparing for STS-2

Abstract

Between the first and second space shuttle flights, flight controllers integrated lessons learned into procedures and planning for future flights. The author was intimately involved in planning tests and payload activities for STS-3, including the Electrophoresis Equipment Verification Test and the Office of Space Sciences (OSS)-1 experiments. Flight rules and system operating constraints were developed in Flight Techniques meetings and plans for the implementation of payload requirements with systems were approved via a Cargo Integration Review meeting. The author traveled to Kennedy Space Center and was not allowed into the Orbiter Processing Facility because she was wearing standard female attire. Anticipating an increased flight rate and with limited training facilities, NASA eased requirements to qualify for console positions. Training simulations for STS-2 included many of the failures actually experienced during that flight. The author’s husband, a private pilot, took her on her first flight in a small plane and to an air show where a pilot was killed. Their flights by small plane to Carlsbad, NM and Grand Canyon, AZ were typical of private aviation in the 1980s.