L‘Garde Programs - INFLATABLE ANTENNA EXPERIMENT (IAE) - The Canopy
Last update: June 17, 1996
Spartan 207/IAE Mission Status
Spartan 207/IAE Status as of 6/13/96:
The debrief with the STS-77 crew, held on Tuesday, 6/11/96, was very productive. After the Spartan payload procedures were discussed, the experiment representatives
(Gordon Veal of L'Garde (the PI) and Dr. Steve Bard of JPL (the IAE Project Manager)) joined in discussions with the crew during the showing of a video of Spartan 207/IAE
on-orbit operations. Some items, not previously noted during the flight or during review of the videos, were brought up by the crew. This will help in the data analysis.
After the official debrief, Mario Runco took the three of us Spartan 207/IAE representatives to the JSC photo lab to look at the Linhoff (4" x 5") and Hasselblad (70 mm) pictures. The pictures were excellent, and will provide very useful data as well as being spectacular to view. We also viewed the 16 mm motion pictures, which turned out very well.
Meanwhile, the GSFC spacecraft and L'Garde experiment team has been busy at KSC. On Monday the spacecraft was removed from the flight bridge. Post-flight maintenance and safing procedures were performed on the flight hardware.
On Wednesday, 6/12, the ACS and IAE pneumatic systems were examined. The ACS pressure was in the nominal range predicted pre-flight. The IAE pressure system was found to be at a vacuum compared to 1 atmosphere, indicating it had been depleted on-orbit. The telemetry data will have to be examined to see whether or not the tanks were emptied prior to jettison. A pressure test on the system overnight indicated that the system was still intact.
On Thursday, 6/13 the onboard IAE videotapes were dubbed to GSE VCR's. All three channels had good video data. The wide-field camera provided particularly interesting views of the inflation dynamics and even picked up Endeavour after the unexpected rotations began.
The spacecraft and GSE are to be shipped to GSFC on Friday, 6/14 and will arrive on Monday, 6/17. After some testing of the EMU TV system the remaining portion of the IAE will be de-integrated and returned to L'Garde, probably by the end of next week (6/21). Data will be dumped from Spartan's Solid State Recorder, formatted, and shipped to L'Garde shortly thereafter.
CSR Status Report for FD03 - Spartan 207/IAE
5/21/96 5 PM
The exciting Spartan 207/Inflatable Antenna Experiment mission finished successfully with the expert rendezvous, grapple, and quick reberth of the remaining portion of the Spartan spacecraft this morning. Canadian Marc Garneau added another smiling face to Endeavour when he picked up the spacecraft with the Canadian robot arm, and found some astronaut artwork on the grapple fixture alignment pin. Another smiling face came into view when the spacecraft was reberthed into its support structure for the ride back to Earth, bringing the total to eight smiling faces onboard Endeavour. This was in addition to numerous smiling faces here on Earth.
The Spartan spacecraft was rock steady in its orientation when the astronauts made their final approach, giving evidence to the fact that the attitude control system was able to recover from the tumble after the jettison of the inflated antenna at the end of its science mission. All in all, the Spartan spacecraft was successful in its support of the Inflatable Antenna Experiment, performing as intended and bringing back the data to be analyzed on Earth.
With all Spartan mission operations complete except for monitoring of temperatures, the spacecraft and experiment team from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, and L'Garde, Inc. of Tustin, CA are preparing for the arrival of the spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center after the mission. The spacecraft will be removed from its support structure and shipped to Goddard where the experiment data will be removed from the spacecraft so data analysis can begin at L'Garde, Inc., the builders of the Inflatable Antenna Experiment.
The experiment team is also anxiously waiting for access to the wealth of photographs, motion pictures, and videos stored onboard Endeavour. We would like to express our gratitude to the Spacehab team for adding the second window to the Spacehab module to enhance the ability of Endeavour's crew to capture the experiment inflation. We appreciate their cooperation in our efforts to advance space technology even as they do their work to advance technology in space. No project can be performed without a great deal of teamwork, and Spartan 207/IAE certainly had a great team behind it, both on orbit and on the ground. Thanks to all of you.
By the way, we've added some flight pictures and movies to our Web pages, so check them out. We'll keep adding things as they become available.
CSR Status Report for FD02 - Spartan 207/IAE
5/21/96 3:30 AM
The on-orbit inflation and operation of the Inflatable Antenna Experiment was fantastic! The first views received from Endeavour were visually stunning, and the experiment team is anticipating the arrival of the data stored onboard the Spartan 207 spacecraft upon it's arrival back on Earth.
The antenna structure, despite some unexpected deployment dynamics, inflated to the proper shape, successfully demonstrating the fundamental performance of this new technology designed to lower the cost of placing large structures in space. Final assessment of the canopy inflation performance will have to wait until post-flight data analysis is performed.
The Spartan 207 carrier spacecraft performed as intended in support of the experiment, from initial starting of the experiment through jettison of the antenna.
Recovery and berthing of the Spartan spacecraft with the antenna experiment data stored onboard is scheduled for FD03.
The L'Garde, JPL, and GSFC Spartan 207/Inflatable Antenna Team would like to congratulate and thank the mission team and the crew of Endeavour for their successful operation of the Inflatable Antenna Experiment on-orbit. It was great, and we anticipate a good set of data upon return.
Also, the Spartan carrier and experiment management would like to thank all the people who designed, developed, built, and integrated the Spartan 207/IAE spacecraft. Their dedication, great skill, innovation, and hard work resulted in a spectacular mission.
We are all proud to be pushing a new area of technology, helping NASA in its quest to explore space "faster, cheaper, better", and even bigger!
CSR Status Report for FD01 - Spartan 207/IAE
5/20/96 1:30 AM
Congratulations to KSC and the Ascent team for a perfect lift-off and start to STS-77. Although Spartan is not activated until just before deploy, one successful temperature check was performed on FD01, which verified the command link through the REM path.
The Spartan team is eagerly preparing for the FD02 deployment of Spartan and the inflation of the Inflatable Antenna Experiment.
We'll be updating our Web pages with pictures from flight and post-flight work as available, so make sure to check in regularly.
To return to the Spartan 207/IAE Home Page.
|
