Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A with Challenger STS-6 (1:144)

[Revell-Fan]

It's unbelievable to see so many parts missing from the commercial kits. Great work as usual, Mani!

[spacerunner]

Thanks Marcell for your nice compliment.

Just a reminder, in the Airfix Kit the ET/SRB Forward Attachment was at least indicated, which didn't look too bad. In the otherwise very well detailed Newware Enhancement Kit, on the other hand, only this strange spigot was intended, which one can forget.



Stay healthy, friends!

[N96HBK]

Great to see you've started working on the shuttle model!! The amount of research you have done is incredible. The tiny details must've been tricky to put together. Keep up the great work!! And stay safe!!

[spacerunner]

Thanks for your nice words and your interest.
Sometimes I curse these tiny parts, especially when they have jumped out of my tweezers, sometimes for Goodbye forever ...
But it's my own fault.

And stay healthy too!

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,
unfortunately there are a few inconsistencies regarding the front and back of the ET/SRB Forward Attachment, which still seem suspicious to me.

On the left during the Rollout of the ET-8 (STS-6) one can clearly see the FWD Hoisting Lug sitting on the "front side" of the ET and pointing up , and on the right, what also shows the ET-8 "front side" it looks like the arrangement with the ET/SRB RSS cross-wiring, strange ...
That doesn't go together ...



The same arrangement can be seen in this photo from the STS-8,


Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (Ares67)

as well as from the STS-9 too.


Source: NASA

Both arrangements would correspond with that of the STS-6 (first image, right).

On the other hand, there are no holes on the FWD Hoisting Lug (right) for the assembly of the ET/SRB RSS cross-wiring boxes, which one can see in the left image.


Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (Jester) Source: live.staticflickr.com (S. Patlan)

But in this screenshot from a Pad 39A walkdown video taken during the STS-133 pad flow it can be seen that these ET/SRB wiring boxes (with a gray fairing) are not sitting on the "front" but on the "back" of the ET (the side that facing away from the orbiter). Now the expert is amazed, and the layperson wonders, right?



This view shows up at 2:36, here you go!

https://youtu.be/Fj-CCf8vExE
How does that fit together, or not, what do you think about it?
Maybe someone in the forum knows about this matter?

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

in our German Raumcon Forum I received a tip about the "Space Shuttle Technical Conference" from 1985, the both parts of which I found on the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) and have skimmed over Easter. Part 1 (227 MB) - Part 2 (198 MB) ...

Unfortunately, I could not find any information in order to clarify the said discrepancies regarding the ET/SRB Forward Attachments, which I have noticed on some early missions' photos.

Regardless of this, one can find a wealth of interesting information in the conference contributions, which I have looked at here and there in more detail, provided that they did concern the ET and/or the SRBs and contained corresponding photos.

And so I'm among others came across a Term I had been tampering with for a while already without getting to the bottom of it ...

This is the term RSS Fairing, which was most recently used in this drawing of the Forward attachment.


Source: System Definition Handbook SLWT, Vol. II (Lockheed Martin)

The term Fairing as such was already familiar to me from the front fairings of the LO2 Feedline and the GH2 Press. Line on the Intertank.

I was only irritated by the abbreviation RSS, which I'm of course familiar regarding the Rotating Service Structure, but wich has nothing to do with it.

But as I have now learned from a conference contribution (EXTERNAL TANK PROCESSING FROM BARGE TO PAD), with RSS is meant the so-called Range Safety System, which I did not know so far, but which was of extraordinary importance as a safety system for all shuttle missions.

And as it is often the case, I was so interested that I pursued this in a targeted manner and tried to find out more information about the task and function of the RSS.

With this is also related to the term ET/SRB RSS cross-wiring, which my friend DaveS from the NASA Spaceflight Forum mentioned during a lengthy PM chat, which only increased my curiosity.

And with that we are right back to these white boxes on the "front" of the ET/SRB Forward Attachment,



which can be seen here both in the opened and in the cladded state, the upper half of which belongs to the ET and the lower half to the SRB. In the left image one can see the RSS cabling between the ET and the SRB for the STS-103.



The Space Shuttle's Range Safety System (RSS) thus enables the destruction of both the SRBs and the ET using on-board explosive charges (Linear Shaped Charge, LSC) by radio remote control from the ground station by the Range Safety Officer (RSO) in the event that the shuttle stack gets out of control to limit the danger to people and facilities on the ground from crashing pieces, explosions, fire, poisonous substances, etc. ...

This drawing shows these LSCs on the ET/SRB, as well as the associated receiving antennas, the Range Safety Command Antennas.


Source: NASA

The RSS was only connected to the LSCs, but not to the SRB separation system, which was wired separately.

As I also know by DaveS, the RSS was cross-wired for security reasons, so that an error could not impair the ability to destroy the stack. The cross-wiring ran from the left SRB-RSS through the ET to the right SRB-RSS and vice versa. In this way, failure of one SRB's RSS cabling would not affect its ability to be destroyed, since the security cabling always was ran from the other SRB too.

The RSS was activated only once - during the Challenger disaster (STS-51-L), 37 seconds after the orbiter broke apart when the SRBs were in uncontrolled flight (Source: wikipedia.org).

And with that once again back to the above-mentioned discrepancies regarding the ET/SRB Forward Attachments.



These can only be explained by the fact that the RSS cross-cabling in the early missions was probably more done on the "front" (-Z side) of the ET than on the "back" (+Z side).
So much for my little Easter walk for those interested.

[N96HBK]

I never knew about the RSS system... Interesting read. The videos look really interesting, I should check them out later!!

I was not alive to witness the accident, but my parents saw the live coverage in '86.... They told me all about it.... I know space flight is dangerous, but it's terribly tragic and sad to lose crew members in an accident.... It's always really sad to find out what went wrong after the tragedies takes place, and really it could be a very simple failure that could have been prevented..... I don't know.... It just makes me really sad.

[spacerunner]

I didn't know the RSS so far too, which is why I was more interested.
I can still remember the images from the TV live coverage and the sudden horror ...




The failure of an O-ring seal on the starboard Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was determined to have caused the shuttle to break-up in flight.



Back row (L-R): Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik. Front row (L-R): Michael J. Smith, Francis "Dick" Scobee, Ronald McNair

May they rest in peace ...

[dhanners]

I was watching the launch on TV, then my editors sent me to JSC for three days or so, then they sent me on to KSC for a week.

[spacerunner]

It was the first Shuttle launch from the newly built Pad 39B, at the construction of which my friend James MacLaren did five years in structural steel construction management from 1980 through 1986,



and which everyone had eagerly looked forward to.

And then this disaster ...