- \n
- STS-126 RE-ENTRY LIVE<\/li>\n
- L2 STS-126 MMT Level Coverage<\/li>\n
- Click here to Join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Interestingly, work has been completed ahead of schedule on the main runway at Edwards, but not in time to relocate the shuttle landing aids required by the orbiter from the temporary runway, thus the refurbished strip will only be available from STS-119 onwards.<\/p>\n
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Although the new 12,000 x 200 ft runway is shorter and narrower than the main runway (15,000 X 300 ft), flight rules were put in place since STS-124 to ensure Endeavour will still have lots of margins for her rollout.<\/p>\n
Endeavour is continuing to behave herself on orbit, with no new issues of note being worked by engineers at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).<\/p>\n
Flight Day 16 involved the final preparations for re-entry, with the checkout of the flight control surfaces \u2013 which used one of the orbiter\u2019s Auxiliary Power Units (APU). The crew also tested all of Endeavour\u2019s Reaction Control System jets.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/a228-300x206.jpg\")
During STS-124, those tests caused one of Discovery\u2019s Rudder Speed Brake (RSB) tabs to liberate from the aft of the vehicle. Mitigation via the orbiter\u2019s processing flow appears to have worked, with no repeat noted during FD16\u2019s checkouts.<\/p>\nThe purpose of the RSB thermal barriers and spring tabs are to protect the RSB cavity from plume radiation during ascent and to control\/maintain the cavity venting requirements during ascent. The tabs are attached to the barriers with three spot welds. Fatigue due to chatter during ascent is considered the primary cause for these welds to fail, and result in the STS-124 liberation.<\/p>\n
During the mitigation on all three orbiters, Endeavour was found to have a problem with one spring tab that was broken at the weld point, leading to its replacement during her STS-126 processing flow.<\/p>\n
Ironically there was a liberation event during the checkouts, although this time it proved only to be a temp pressure label that liberated from Endeavour\u2019s payload bay, and has no mission impact.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, Endeavour carried out the deployment of a solar cell experiment Picosat on behalf of the Department of Defence (DOD). The tiny satellite was sent on its way via a spring release system on the cargo bay\u2019s sidewall.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/a312.jpg\")
The satellite will test two types of new solar cells in the harsh environment of space, with the performance of the solar cells \u2013 and their degradation over time \u2013 to be used to determine if they are fit to use in flight.<\/p>\n\u201cSpace Shuttle Picosat Launcher 5510\/Picosat Solar Cell Experiment (SSPL 5510\/PSSC). PSSC has picosatellites designed to test solar cells in space,\u201d noted STS-126 SSP Flight Readiness Review (FRR) documentation on L2. \u201cPicosatellites are ejected after ISS undock using a Non-Explosive Actuator (NEA) via spring force.<\/p>\n
\u201cSSPL 5510\/PSSC is attached to PLB sidewall using the Adaptive Payload Carrier (APC). Deployment command\/telemetry provided by crew via standard switch panel. Weight: 126 lbs; picosats deployed weight: 16 lbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a month\u2019s time, its 8D model rocket motors \u2013 the same used by some rocket model rocketeers \u2013 will fire to adjust its orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnused space being used to study micro satellite propulsion with solid rocket motors via ground command and tracked by radar,\u201d added the presentation. \u201cPicosat has ability to adjust its own orbit and will do so at end of primary mission. Burn is no earlier than 30 days after deploy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Updates to this article will be added during the day \u2013 refer to the live coverage pages for up to the second updates.<\/p>\n
L2 members<\/em><\/em>: All documentation \u2013 from which the above article has quoted snippets \u2013 is available in full in the related L2 sections, now over 4000 gbs in size.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STS-126 marked Endeavour\u2019s EOM-1 (End Of Mission minus one day) with checkouts of the orbiter\u2019s vital systems that will be used during Sunday\u2019s re-entry, and the deployment of a Picostar from Endeavour\u2019s Payload Bay. Due to poor weather in Florida, Endeavour will head to Edwards Air Force Base for landing at 4:25pm Eastern. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":[3549,9219],"class_list":["post-41249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-landing","tag-sts-126"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249"}],"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=41249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}