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ET-122 \u2013 scheduled to be ready to ship next month \u2013 was damaged when Hurricane Katrina impacted on the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in the New Orleans region. With the addition of the STS-134 flight with Endeavour to the Shuttle manifest, ET-122 won back its ticket for a ride uphill.<\/p>\n
STS-134 debuted on the latest FAWG (Flight Assignment Working Group) manifest in 2008 as the LON (Launch On Need) support for STS-133. Once Endeavour\u2019s mission was baselined with the AMS payload, ET-122 \u2013 partnered with Atlantis \u2013 was assigned as the LON support of STS-134, under the designation \u201cSTS-135, LON Support for STS-134\u201d \u2013 soon to change to the STS-335 call sign.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/A417.jpg\" "\\"ET-134")
ET-122 had already been pre-empted for a potential return to the NASA manifest by Lockheed Martin\u2019s ET Program Manager Wanda Sigur in 2008.<\/p>\n\u201cHurricane Katrina damaged ET-122 in Cell A when concrete fell from the roof and hit some areas of the tank,\u201d noted Sigur at the time. \u201cWe\u2019ve been asked to put together a proposal about ET-122 to determine how and when the tank could be returned to the fleet for NASA to evaluate.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe are working on that. ET-122 could be used possibly as a launch-on-need tank or for other NASA objectives in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
With ET-122 now coming to the conclusion of its production phase at MAF \u2013 which has included the Return To Flight (RTF) modifications \u2013 the option to fly ET-122 with Endeavour on STS-134 may be prudent. While the tank will clearly be safe, STS-135 will be the first post-Columbia mission to be without Shuttle LON support.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/A315.jpg\" "\\"ET-134")
The likelihood of the move also increased via the latest SSP \u201cFAWG \u2013 Flight Assignments Working Group\u201d manifest (L2), which shows ET-122 with STS-134 and ET-138 with STS-335\/135 \u2013 a mission that reflects the latest decision to push forward with the flight pending the political process, via the payload change to mission content.<\/p>\nAtlantis\u2019 role will technically remain that of a LON flight until STS-134 safely lands, providing the potential for a Contingency Shuttle Crew Support (CSCS) replenish for the International Space Station (ISS), after hosting the STS-134 crew in the highly unlikely scenario of a major problem with Endeavour\u2019s health on orbit.<\/p>\n
Rationale for utilizing the pristine ET-138 for the final mission \u2013 STS-135 \u2013 is also based on an unlikely event, relating to damaging foam\/ice liberations during ascent. Should that highly unlikely event occur on STS-134 with ET-122 \u2013 Atlantis would at least be ready to aid with the rescue of the crew, with the brand new ET-138.<\/p>\n
ET-94:<\/p>\n
With the political refinements ongoing for NASA\u2019s FY2011 budget proposal, the forward plan for Shuttle is starting to look a little more certain, with both the Senate and the House supporting the addition of STS-135. However, the Senate bill does leave the door slightly open for an actual shuttle extension.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, an extension is unlikely at this stage of negotiations. However, with the all-but certain political approval of STS-135, and the continued move towards the immediate implementation of a development path for a Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (SD HLV) in 2011, a level of viability exists for extra shuttle missions.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/A514.jpg\" "\\"ET-134")
Three new tanks \u2013 at various stages of construction \u2013 exist in storage at MAF; ET-139, ET-140 and ET-141. However, none of these tanks could be completed ahead of 2012 according to the Space Shuttle Program (SSP).<\/p>\nOne completed tank also resides in the New Orleans facility, known as ET-94. This \u201cold\u201d Light Weight Tank (LWT) would require refurbishment, such as the list of RTF modifications, but would also cost several thousand pounds in lost upmass, if it launched with a very notional STS-136 mission.<\/p>\n
Regardless, that mission remains an option \u2013 as noted by managers this month \u2013 be it via a shuttle extension, or more likely playing an early role as part of the SD HLV test program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been a lot of questions about ET-94 which is our older light weight tank built in 2001,\u201d added the Staff Senior Meeting Notes. \u201cIt\u2019s been under configuration control and we\u2019ve been working cost numbers for refurbishing it for either a flight unit or being modified into a Main Propulsion Test Article (MPTA) for whatever heavy lift vehicle comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/A66.jpg\" "\\"ET-134")
Documentation (L2) associated with the HEFT (Human Exploration Framework Team) \u2013 a key body involved with the creation of NASA new exploration roadmap \u2013 also points towards an inline SD HLV configuration, with the Shuttle ET Diameter core and an identical make up as the Jupiter-246 HLV (article pending).<\/p>\nAlong with the other SD HLV candidate \u2013 the Sidemount SD HLV \u2013 which also utilizes a Shuttle ET, having ET-94 ready to become the MPTA would ease the development cycle ahead of the completion of ET-139 for use with a Block I SD HLV.<\/p>\n
For the interim, NASA managers are simply placing all their cards on the table as options, ahead of the conclusion of the political process, which will finally result in NASA gaining a solid and viable direction for the upcoming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With STS-135 heading into mission planning for a June 28, 2011 flight \u2013 pending the required funding being passed by lawmakers \u2013 managers have opted to delay the mating of STS-134\u2019s External Tank (ET) and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) to December, in order to allow a potential tank swap between ET-138 and ET-122. Meanwhile, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29593,"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":[9021,9181,3711,9034,3366,3659],"class_list":["post-40680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-et","tag-et-122","tag-et-94","tag-hlv","tag-sts-134","tag-sts-135"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40680"}],"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=40680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}