Analog Science Fiction and Fact - June 2013

term payload for things you dropped on the
enemy that went bang. Absolutely the wrong
word for a scientific experiment.)
My first launch was STS-9 in 1983; the last
launch of the shuttle I worked on was the last
launch of the shuttle STS-135 in 2011. Yes,
I’m ancient.
Sounds pretty boring, doesn’t it? But it was
exciting: imagine, the experiment I worked
on was going to look at areas of the Universe
and discover new things. PhDs were made on
the data that came back from these Spacelab
missions. And that was just Spacelab. I also
worked on the launch of Galileo, Ulysses, the
Hubble Space Telescope, and other probes.
More knowledge gained for mankind. Very exciting
to those of us working on the payload
side of the shuttle.
Launch
The first mission I sat on console in the
Launch Control Center (the LCC) was nerve
racking. It was the launch of STS-51F on July
12, 1985, which carried Spacelab-2. At T minus
7 seconds (roughly) the three main engines
are started, one at a time.
During that countdown we monitored the
payload. If certain parameters went out of limits,
called Launch Commit Criteria, (LCC), the
launch would scrub. Our LCC went down to
T minus 31 seconds. Imagine, you are 28
years old and you can stop the launch of the
shuttle with a single word, “Cutoff.” We went
through a lot of training for this moment: simulations,
practice countdowns. But now it
was real. I have been on an aircraft carrier
landing planes in rough weather. I’ve had helicopter
flights to other ships in rough seas being
lowered by a “horse collar” on a pitching
deck hoping I wouldn’t break a leg. All that
was scary, but I was okay with it. Now, for the
first time in my life, my palms were sweating.
I had a headset and microphone on with my
left hand touching the transmit button, and I
had to constantly wipe my right hand. LCC
started six hours prior to launch. At that
point, if a problem arose, you had time to do
troubleshooting. You could issue commands,
look at data, talk to people on the phone, and
figure out if it was a real problem. When it got
down to T minus a minute or so, you had no
time, you just had to scrub. At T minus 31 seconds
the Ground Launch Sequencer (GLS)
WORKING ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE
JUNE 2013
takes over, and if it sees anything out of
bounds, its software will shut down the
launch. That’s when I can breathe again. At T
minus 3 seconds, the engines were shut
down. Damn—so close. Then the entire
launch crew had to safe the pad and get the
astronauts out of the shuttle. A very tense
emergency.
On July 29, 1985, we tried again. My palms
were sweating all the way to T minus 31 seconds
as before, and I should mention that I
had a team of 12 people sweating with me.
They were all highly trained, and under as
much stress. I was the only one that had to report
to the Payload Test Conductor (PTC),
who reports to the NASA Test Director
(NTD), the person who makes the final decision
to launch. My people made the decisions
to tell me what to say to the PTC. At T-7 seconds
the engines fired successfully, and at Tzero
the boosters ignited and we had liftoff. A
few seconds later, the windows facing the
pad started to vibrate from the shear power of
the engines and boosters. The noise was loud,
even though the shuttle was a mile away. If
you are there for a launch, and your heart isn’t
racing, and your mouth doesn’t open, you
must be dead.
At T plus 3 minutes and a half, one turbo
pump turbine discharge temperature sensor
failed. Two minutes later the second sensor
failed, and that caused the engine software to
shut down. If another engine failed it would
mean that the shuttle might have to land overseas
at a contingency landing site. Eventually
our payload would have to be removed which
means I would have to fly to help them. We
sat on the console hoping and praying it
would make orbit. I’m thinking: I don’t want
to process this payload all over again. Fortunately,
the shuttle made it to orbit.
I worked on many other missions. I was the
lead test conductor for the Ulysses mission.
That means that, again, we had Launch Commit
Criteria for that mission. But I wasn’t making
the technical evaluation, because I was
now the PTC. I was just telling the NTD what
my team told me. Much easier than Spacelab.
Later I started being a part of the team that
simulated the Launch Commit Criteria. I
served on various boards to make sure the
payloads were ready for launch. Mostly boring
stuff.
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