Abstract
Time and power are amongst the most valuable resources to manage on a spacecraft, so much so that mission planners rarely leave much of either to spare. Even before Columbia’s maiden flight, and considering the enormous costs involved in launching a single mission, it became evident that the Shuttle performance would soon require to be extended in order to pack as many activities as possible into each mission.
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Notes
- 1.
A slip-ring is an electromechanical device that facilitates the transmission of power and electrical signals from a stationary structure to a rotating structure.
- 2.
Skylab , the first space station orbited by NASA, consisted of a Saturn V third stage externally fitted with solar panels and radiators and internally with living and working quarters for a crew of three. The ATM, was a boxy structure derived from the descent stage of an Apollo lunar lander. It was in line with the longitudinal axis of Skylab for launch, and then turned 90° on-orbit. It provided the mounting support and avionics for a suite of four solar telescopes and four solar panels.
- 3.
This was the nominal pressure maintained in the crew compartment during flight.
- 4.
Endeavour was built with the crew cabin modified for extended flights and with the plumbing to operate the pallet carried in the payload bay, so it was already EDO compliant. Atlantis and Columbia underwent the retrofit. Atlantis never used it. Discovery was not retrofitted. Only Columbia and Endeavour flew with the pallet .
- 5.
This total includes the ill-fated STS-107 mission, where the EDO was lost together with Columbia and its crew. The only flight by the EDO aboard another vehicle was the ASTRO-2 /STS-67 mission by Endeavour in 1995.
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Sivolella, D. (2017). More Power and Time Needed. In: The Space Shuttle Program. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54946-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54946-0_11
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