Re: 18 Shuttle flights between now and 2010

"Ray" <vze3gz45@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in L0u1f.6006$ar6.4338@trndny01:">news:L0u1f.6006$ar6.4338@trndny01:

> I am a huge supporter of NASA, but I am wondering if NASA will
> really be able to fly 18 shuttle flights between now and 2010,
> according to this article below. They will have to fly 4 or 5 shuttle
> flights a year starting in 2006. How realistic is this?
>
> http://www.flatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051007/NEWS02/5100
> 70353/1007/news02

Your math is wrong. 18 shuttle flights (plus a possibly 19th for HST)
over 2006-2010 is an average rate of *less* than four flights per year.
For example:

2006 3
2007 4
2008 4
2009 4
2010 3

Four flights per year is very realistic for a three-orbiter fleet. During
the first ten years after the post-51L return-to-flight, 1988-1998[1],
the fleet flew 66 times. If you throw out Columbia's 14 flights after
Endeavour debuted, you get an average rate between 5-6 per year. So an
average rate of 3-4 per year for a three-orbiter fleet has quite a bit of
pad in it. Note that the period in question had several lengthy
standdowns, such as the hydrogen leak fiasco of 1990.

The keys to achieving that rate will be twofold. One, ET foam-shedding
has to continue to decrease until it's below the documented limits
(hopefully NASA will achieve this on STS-121). Two, NASA must return to
night launch capability[2]. This will result in some loss of capability
for the ground-based cameras to detect impacts and damage. However, NASA
has so many other means of detection/inspection (ground-based radar,
aerial cameras, ET/SRB cameras, wing-leading-edge sensors, ET umbilical
cameras, shuttle crew handheld cameras, RMS cameras, OBSS, ISS crew
handheld cameras) that this should not be a big problem.

[1] - this period is more representative of the 2006-2010 flight rate
than 1998-2003 because there was a backlog of payloads waiting to fly on
the shuttle, so shuttle availability was limited by the shuttle itself
and not the payloads. In 1998-2003, on the other hand, shuttle flights
were mostly limited by availability of ISS hardware to launch.

[2] - the daytime launch limitation, combined with existing launch window
constraints, only provides four or five good launch opportunities per
year, which effectively eliminates most of the pad in the schedule since
even a small launch delay can force a launch to slip two months or more
for the next daytime opportunity.
--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Foam Problem Cover Up?
    ... they wont consider that if the last flights were as perfect as ... I remember after last launch some reliable person here ... It was a debris event I ... to the left (as the camera tracks the ascending shuttle). ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: Nasa announces night launches back soon, rescue shuttles temporary
    ... Shuttle until it can be fixed. ... > CAPE CANAVERAL-- NASA plans to have a rescue shuttle ready for just the ... > on one of the first two flights. ... > requirement to launch during the daytime so that tracking cameras can get ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: OT Shuttle launch moved to January again
    ... Challenger launch in 1986 in January Pushed back time and again. ... Because, in terms of technology, it's an antique. ... The shuttle has a fatal failure rate of about 1.75% (two fatal flights in 116 flights0, ...
    (alt.autos.toyota)
  • Reliability [was:: Future of Orion??]
    ... And this is one reason why it bothers me we're losing the shuttle. ... there were 25 successful flights ... between the first shuttle launch and the first failure, ... flights between this and the second failure; if this trend kept on, ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: [ot] Space Shuttle Launch!
    ... > launch, ... > installed a whole bunch of cameras outside the shuttle. ... > orange fuel tank. ...
    (rec.pets.cats.anecdotes)
Loading