Re: Chandra leftovers and Shuttle-launch views
- From: "Rusty" <reuben_barton@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 20 Jul 2006 09:29:36 -0700
William C. Keel wrote:
I just learned this interesting tidbit of hardware recycling:"> tasked on a "best-effort" basis, and they couldn't spare the people
One of the numerous things the CAIB report pointed out was the very
poor and patchy quality of ground-0based imagery of the STS-107
launch. Two of the cameras in the best position to see the foam strike
were seriously compromised - one was badly out of focus, and the other
had a cable wrap issue that kept it from tracking the vehicle long
after launch. This was said to be due to their being USAF assets
that
day. So now NASA is making a set of six new tracking cameras in-house:
62-cm aperture, 8-m focal length Cassegrain-style systems with front
windows to keep out the Florida flying goo.
Flashback: when the largest of the nested mirror segments for the Chandra
observatory was fabricated, it was made from a large and thick boule of
Zerodur low-expansion glass. Being a nearly cylindrical section of
a paraboloid (well, one mirror was a paraboloid and one a hyperboloid,
IIRC), they only needed a thin cylidrical shell around the outside, so they
elegantly drilled a connecting bunch of maybe 3-cm holes and popped the inner
boule out. That hunk of glass stayed in storage until lately - and
it was plenty large enough to cut the blanks for the six tracking-camera
primary mirrors out of. NASA could probably have had this done commercially,
but since the Marshall space-optics facility is between major projects
and can do them almost trivially, they've started from the recycled glass
already.
You never know when old parts will come in handy. It's a good thing nobody
in procurement suggested they put the glass up on eBay...
Bill Keel
On the first Saturn test flight (SA-1 in October 1961), 65 engineering
cameras and 50 range cameras were used to record the launch.
See page 9 of:
"Test results part 1 of the firing test report Saturn vehicle SA-1"
NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
NASA-TM-X-133658; N-103458; MTP-LOD-61-36.1 , 19611108; Nov 8, 1961
Accession ID: 73N73372
Document ID: 19730064130
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730064130_1973064130.pdf
-Rusty
.
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- From: William C. Keel
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