CSC Supports Discovery’s Safe Return to Earth
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| Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely at 9:14 am EDT on July 17. Photo courtesy of NASA. |
When Space Shuttle Discovery successfully completed its 13-day mission to the International Space Station today, it reinvigorated the NASA shuttle program. The seven astronauts who completed critical research and repairs to the space station were supported by thousands of people on the ground, including more than a thousand from a CSC joint venture.
Computer Sciences Raytheon (CSR), a joint venture between CSC’s Applied Technology Division and Raytheon Technical Services Company, provides range technical services to all manned and unmanned launches from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. From weather tracking to radar surveillance, the CSR team performed duties critical to NASA’s shuttle program.
Watching the sky
When the shuttle launched on July 4, CSR meteorological staff were stationed at the Kennedy launch site to provide continual weather observations directly to government meteorologists to ensure the weather conditions were acceptable. (Earlier launch attempts on July 1 and 2 had been scrubbed because of bad weather.) Another CSR group at Cape Canaveral released 21 weather balloons to provide NASA with precise profiles of the launch winds during the hours leading up to launch. NASA adjusts the Space Shuttle trajectory and flight profile to compensate for wind shears, which reduces the air loads on the vehicle.
"This is a super-critical function where our meteorologists review the wind profiles in real-time and edit out any suspect data before it is transmitted to NASA Johnson Space Center in real-time for trajectory shaping," says Mike Maier, vice president and general manager of CSR.
CSR technicians also operate and maintain all of the meteorological sensors and display systems used by Cape Canaveral and the Johnson Space Center to make the launch call. This includes dedicated weather surveillance radar, rapid updates of cloud conditions, three different lightning detection and locating systems, an array of wind profiling radar and wind towers, and a toxic and blast damage assessment system.
Once the shuttle was approved to launch, CSC provided flight-specific maintenance and utility support to the Johnson Space Center Mission Control Power Plant and mission control complex. That support included a dedicated CSC mission manager and certified operations engineers, on duty from 12 hours before launch to four hours after landing.
Protecting public safety
The US Air Force plays a key role in all launches from Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, ensuring public safety and security at the launch site. As with all launches from the Eastern Range, CSR operated the instrumentation, communications, and information systems used by the Air Force for the Discovery launch. The systems were used to command and control the Eastern Range and all Department of Defense resources supporting the launch, as well as communicate with NASA. This involves a large network for voice, video and data transmission. It also includes satellite communications with the fleet of aircraft and ships required to monitor and clear the launch area; for security surveillance; and with the rescue and recovery forces in the launch area, in the solid rocket booster impact area and in European aborted landing sites.
CSR also operates and maintains a network of sea and air surveillance radar to provide the Air Force range clearance, security and air space management.
"One of the sea surveillance radar detected a small boat in the launch area about 10 minutes prior to the scheduled launch on the first day," Maier notes. "The boat didn’t respond to radio calls so the Air Force surveillance control officer vectored a helicopter to the area and he immediately changed course and left the launch danger area, eliminating the possibility of a launch delay."
Overall, CSR systems and people were "go" for all but about 35 minutes of the combined 960 minutes of countdown on the three days. "These three countdowns extend our string without a launch scrub due to CSR equipment or people to 187 consecutive successful countdowns dating back now over seven years," says Maier.
The Discovery is the latest in a long line of CSC achievements in the aerospace industry, which began in 1961 with a contract to provide support to NASA’s JPL and includes having a NASA astronaut on staff. CSC’s Ron Parise flew on shuttle missions in 1990 and 1995, serving as a payload specialist.
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