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

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,
and here is a small addendum to the Astrovan (1:160), to which of course also Astronauts belong to.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

and since I now know how big the Payload Canister and its Transporter are, I wanted to get an overview of the proportions right away,



and have drawn the side view of the canister into the transporter's photo. And this silhouette I used as a stand-up display for the Astrovan with the astronaut. And this combo doesn't look bad, I think.



Of course, the KAMAG logos will later be replaced by the appropriate NASA Worm logos, naturally.

[spacerunner]

My friends,

we will never forget this day when yesterday 36 years ago the Challenger disaster happened on the newly built launch pad 39B and the STS-51L crew of seven became everlasting legends.


Back row: Ellison S. Onizuka, S. Christa McAuliffe, Gregory B. Jarvis, Judith A. Resnik
Front row: Michael J. Smith, Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Ronald E. McNair
Source: wikipedia.org
That's why my STS-6 project should be a little tribute to these heroes of American spaceflight history.

May they rest in peace.

[Revell-Fan]

So say we all.


Yes, that was a tragedy. I could not believe it when I saw it in the news. :(


Mani, I have never heard of that transporter before. It looks very interesting. How are you going to make it? Will it be paper or plastic?

[spacerunner]

Thanks Marcell,

I can still see the horrified faces of Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy shortly after lift-off ...

Yep, the Payload Canister Transporter is an extraordinary multifunctional special vehicle. I will first build prototypes of the transporter and the canister out of paper and later out of plastic.

[Algebraist]

Looking forward to learning about the payload canister transporter in your upcoming posts Manfred. One thing I am curious about is if it was self leveling like the crawler?

Regards

Kevin

[spacerunner]

Thanks Kevin,
on the impressive driving characteristics of the Payload Canister Transporter I have already reported in my post #2560.

Since he also had to drive up the slanting crawler way to the launch pad with the upright Payload Canister and compensate this just like the Crawler Transporter, all each 12 double twin wheel sets had separate brake and stabilization lifting systems.


Source: NASAfacts

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

then I want to continue, so as not to get completely out of practice.

However, I've first turned to the Transporter, which still gave me a few puzzles that I still had to solve.

In the beginning I've used this beautiful image of the transporter as a guide,


Source: mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov

and I first started the experimental assembly, for which I glued both side fronts onto a Balsa board (2 mm), whereby I was so busy that I made a few mistakes, which I've only gradually recognized.

Since the photo shows one of the 2000 transporters delivered by KAMAG, I've first replaced the front KAMAG Logo with the NASA Worm Logo and pasted over the back logo, which later turned out to be a mistake. That had to do with the fact that I was initially guided by James MacLaren's words that the first transporters had driver's cabs on both sides, which is why one had not need to distinguish between front and back side, but what is simply thought too short ...

This also resulted in the error in my reasoning that I mirrored the other side, which was not necessary respectively wrong.



So I created a copy of the first side and thus had two opposite sides and thus a driver's cabin on both front sides. So far so good.



With that I could now continue the construction, for which I've fixed the two side parts on a steel sheet with magnets over the floor plan of the transporter (124 mm x 44 mm) in order to then be able to glue the front and back side between them.



To do this, I looked again at the few photos of the transporter from the STS-6 and from the STS-9, which followed six months later, and have compared them with James MacLaren's photos, which were from the same period.

And in doing so, I noticed some serious differences regarding the front and rear of the transporters of that time, which I had not known or overlooked before, but which are decisive for their construction. And they are clearly related to the direction of travel of the transporter when transporting the Payload Canister to the launch pad, which ultimately should turn out to be the solution to the riddle.
But since I've made good resolutions and don't want to work a night shift again, I'll stop at this point and continue tomorrow.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

as should have already become clear in my last post, I struggled with some inconsistencies and ambiguities for a while, the clarification of which was actually a rather tough nut to crack, which, on the one hand, kept me busy longer than expected and was quite stressful, but on the other hand, was essential in order to can scratch the transporter used that time possibly close true to the original at STS-6.

As already indicated, I've tried to get things straight concerning the driving direction of the Transporter when transporting the Payload canister to the Launch pad, during the canister was always standing upright (Vertical Transportation Mode).


Source: Space Shuttle News Reference (NTR Server, 1981)

In this upright position, the transporter leaves the preparation building (Vertical Processing Facility), as can be seen in this image of the STS-6. And now it gets interesting.


Source: retrospaceimages.com (STS-6)

In this position with the flat side of the canister forward, however, the transporter does not drive to the launch pad but in the opposite direction, wherefore it's controlled from the driver's cab on the rear side, what is a small but subtle difference that one have to take into account, what can be seen in the following image.

Here, in the mid-1980s, the transporter was almost at its destination on the way to the pad and is already on the slanted access road, with the hillslope being compensated by the lifting technology of the chassis, as one can clearly see.

Because of the driving direction, this is for me as from now the front side of the transporter.


Source: 16streets.com/MacLaren

Arrived on the pad, the transporter finally maneuvers in a left turn so far under the RSS until it comes up with the Payload Canister directly under the Payload Bay of the RSS and there to standstill.

Consequently in this image by James MacLaren one has a look at the back side of the transporter with the rear driver's cab and at the F&GS Module and I&CS Module, located on this side, whose tasks have already been briefly described in Reply #2560.


Source: 16streets.com/MacLaren

In this position directly under the Payload Bay of the RSS, the transporter turns into a special Hoisting Mode, in which it gets on its knees, which means that the front side is tilted down and the back side tilted up, so that the canister can then be hoisted up by the RSS crane.


Source: capcomespace.net

On this photo of the STS-6 one can see the canister already hoisted in front of the RSS Payload Bay and the discharged transporter below, looking onto the rear of the Transporter with its back side.


Source: retrospaceimages.com (STS-6)

In the zoom one nicely can see the arrangement of the I&CS and F&GS modules.


Source: retrospaceimages.com (STS-6)

And now all I needed was a similarly good shot of the front side of the transporter, which one can see in this cropped photo from the STS-6. A typical feature on the front side are the red hoses, via which the air conditioning of the environmental control system (ECS module) is connected to the canister, whereby constantly clean room conditions were ensured inside.


Source: retrospaceimages.com (STS-6)

Here is another image of the front side of the transporter in Horizontal Transportation Mode of the canister at STS-9 in late 1983 showing the side connections of the hoses at the canister.


Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (Ares67)

With this the structure of the Payload Canister Transporter of that time as the basis for scratching has now been fundamentally clarified, from which it is clearly evident that the KAMAG Transporter delivered in 2000 differed from the early transporters by having a clearly different structure especially at its back side.


Source: mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov

Besides the fact that there was only one driver's cab at the front side, one can see this large cavity at the back side that I had noticed all along. In addition, the rear end is stretched far too long due to the perspective distortion of the photo, which has surprised me and initially irritated me.
Consequently I have to revise the design of my side walls again and adapt some details to the outfit of the STS-6 transporter.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

at least this inconsistency I have now been able to clarify.

As one can see in this photo of the transporters 2000 delivered to NASA for replacing their 20-year-old predecessors, the space next to the driver's cab for the Environmental Control System (ECS) was still empty, which is why I assume that the transporters were subsequently equipped at the KSC with some of the previously described subsystems for monitoring the environment inside the canister: the Electrical Power System (EPS), the Environmental Control System (ECS), the Instrumentation and Communications System (I&CS) and the Fluids and Gas System (F&GS).


Source: mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov

This image before STS-125 shows the ECS Module at the front side of the transporter as it enters the clean room environment of the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to load Hubble hardware/equipment to service the Hubble Space Telescope during this mission.


Source: NASA (Kim Shiflett)

Next, I tried to adapt the previous side walls of the transporter to the STS-6 outfit of that time.



To do this, I have carried out extensive analyzes of my reference photos from that time, through which I have recognized some typical differences in detail, especially on the front and back side.



These two photos by James MacLaren were very helpful,


Source: 16streets.com/MacLaren


Source: 16streets.com/MacLaren

where one can see, among other things, that the driver's cabin had a different shape at that time and the driver's door had a larger rectangular window. There were also added some instruments on the side panels as well as the modules on the back that I tried to replicate.



As a result, the NASA Worm logo of that time also moved to the right place further back. I've then scaled these details down to my scale (1:160) and photo-mounted them on the previous side walls and added the front and back sides from that time, which I then liked much better.





These modified side walls I've then first glued again onto a Balsa board (2 mm), but then quickly realized that this two-dimensional representation of the walls with textures similar to David Maier's Paper Kits looks a bit too unrealistic, since some of the details have to be behind the 2 mm thick side walls, such as in particular the double twin wheel sets, about the modeling of which I was uncertain for a long time ...
After careful consideration, I then discarded my previous Scratch concept and thought about a more realistic construction of the transporter, whereto I carefully separated the driver's cabins and modules at the end of the side walls.



Some more information on that will come next time.