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\u201cS1287 orbiter aft closeouts continue. S08133 Payload Closeouts: Payload closeout operations and Payload bay door closure for flight were completed on Saturday. S1005\/S1006 LOX\/LH2 Dew Point Conditioning are scheduled for today. S5009 Final Ordnance Connection\/Installation is scheduled for tonight. EMU (EVA Suits) checkout is scheduled for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
As reported by this site last week, IPR-47 was first thought to be related to a Quick Disconnect (QD) or Flight Cap, when engineers \u201csmelt\u201d a whiff of vapor (a fishy smell \u2013 indicating fuel vapor) coming from the aft of Discovery last Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The suspected QD\/Cap, located in the area of the crossfeed system between the two OMS Pods, was accessed by engineers via the 59-64 door \u2013 a triangular door located on the aft bulkhead of the orbiter \u2013 ahead of a weekend effort to remove and replace the flight cap and clean the AHC.<\/p>\n
This effort was successful, with Discovery now sporting a new cap and a cleaned AHC. However, toxic vapor checks still showed signs of a leak.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/A581.jpg\" "\\"A58\\"")
With the cap and AHC ruled out as the cause, engineers pinpointed the issue to be with the crossfeed flange area, likely to be a problem with an associated seal.<\/p>\nSpace Shuttle
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\u201cIPR-0047 update: The flight cap was removed after TCDT. The AHC was cleaned to flight requirement and a new flight cap was installed for flight. Once completed, toxic vapor checks still indicated a leak; the location of the leak has been narrowed to the crossfeed flange,\u201d noted the NTD report on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngineering performed additional troubleshooting Saturday to help identify the root cause of the leakage. Based on the results, SCAPE (Self-Contained Atmospheric Protection Ensemble (suits used while performing task such as hydrazine loading)) operations will be required to drain the left and right Orbiter Maneuvering System (OMS) tanks and decontaminate the crossfeed in an effort to address any discrepancies to the internal crossfeed flange seals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Draining the tanks on Discovery\u2019s OMS should not be a problem from a schedule standpoint, with around four days of contingency still remaining in the flow. However, the plan to disconnect the flange \u2013 and indeed reconnecting the flange \u2013 has never been carried out at the pad before. Such work is normally carried out when the orbiter is in the horizontal position, such as when she\u2019s in her OPF.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the OMS tank drain, engineers will attempt one final torque check of the flange, as noted in late processing information on Monday:<\/p>\n
\u201cIPR-47 work tonight includes torque check of flange, and leak checks if movement detected,\u201d noted the update. \u201cFurther work is in engineering review.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday Update: However, overnight information from the NTD (L2) reported no movement was observed in the bolts (which were torqued at the \u201chigh end\u201d, showing this is not the problem. Further Engineering Review Board (ERB) meetings will take place again on Tuesday to outline for forward plan \u2013 which will likely call for the draining of the OMS tanks ahead of the replacement of the seals on the flange.<\/p>\n
However, notes from around 7am local point to engineers claiming the leak has vanished, after what appears to be a 100 psid increase in the crossfeed line. The verdict is this may have actually seated the primary seal. Questions remain on the status of the secondary seal, but it appears Discovery no longer has a leak.<\/p>\n
Meetings on Tuesday call for further testing and the replacement of the primary and secondary seals \u2013 new article pending.<\/p>\n
STS-133 Specific Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/sts-133\/<\/p>\n
Should the flange repair effort fail, Discovery would \u2013 according to sources \u2013 be at risk of requiring a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), ahead of undergoing demating operations from the stack, and prior to a rollback to her Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) for repairs.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/A310.jpg\" "\\"A3\\"")
The current plan as of midday Monday is to proceed with an attempt to disconnect the flange later this week, allowing engineers to check and replace the seal, prior to attempting a reconnection, reservicing the OMS tanks and further leak checks. The leak \u2013 which is only vapor not liquid \u2013 is currently being contained by an aspirator.<\/p>\n\u201cSCAPE operations will begin no earlier than Wednesday. An aspirator is in-place and will be activated to collect any vapor at the leak-site allowing work to continue in other locations around the aft of the ship,\u201d added the NTD. \u201cPreviously scheduled work will continue through Tuesday while the test team develops procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discovery needs to be ready to launch in the first week of November, prior to to a Beta Angle Cutout on November 8.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/A49.jpg\" "\\"A4\\"")
This is followed by a traffic jam of visiting vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS), with Dual Docked Operations (DDO) constrains from a Russian Soyuz, Europe\u2019s ATV and Japan\u2019s HTV \u2013 with a Year End Roll Over (YERO) constraint sandwiched inbetween.<\/p>\nPotential solutions to DDO constraints continue to be worked, while a mitigation plan may be available for the YERO constraint. However, failing to launch in early November would likely result in Discovery\u2019s launch date slipping to late February, 2011 \u2013 in turn bumping Endeavour\u2019s STS-134 mission to the summer, and the notional STS-135 flight of Atlantis to around the Fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cAvailable Shuttle Launch Window: 1-7 Nov \u2013 maximum of four opportunities. Beta angle constraints from 8-23 Nov. Dual Docked Ops (DDO) constraint from 20-30 Nov. Possible window 1-5 Dec (3 man ISS crew \u2013 substantial loss of science ops) \u2013 Not currently an option,\u201d noted the STS-133 Space Shuttle Program (SSP) Flight Readiness Review (FRR) documentation (L2).<\/p>\n
\u201cOther constraints starting 6 Dec (DDO, ATV DDO, YERO, 3-angle, Node 2 nadir conflict) through 26 Feb \u2013 (the Node 2 nadir conflict is due to the docked HTV2 vehicle).\u201d<\/p>\n
Such a slip would be a worst case scenario, with the hugely experienced engineering teams being no strangers to challenging issues \u2013 with successful mitigation usually the outcome.<\/p>\n
(Updates will be posted into the live coverage thread and updated into this article. Images via L2 and L2 documentation).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Discovery\u2019s IPR-47 (Interim Problem Report) has become a potential schedule concern, after the replacement of a flight cap failed to stop a vapor leak in the orbiter\u2019s aft. The leak is now believed to be in the crossfeed flange area, with the forward plan requiring the draining of the left and right Orbiter Maneuvering System […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9186,9051],"class_list":["post-40628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ipr-47","tag-sts-133"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}