Spaceflight geeks... videos to watch !!!

[saabcaptain]

Typhoon got me remember some great spaceflight videos available online...

Check these out...

First off is the site, www.insideksc.com which has free DIVX videos from tons of recent shuttle missions...

1. This one (actually 2 parts) has a full shuttle launch video from T-30 to MECO viewed from the windows looking IN with full CVR audio at the same time. Fantastic... watch as the pilot sounds so nervous while the CDR (on his 6th launch) sounds like he has ice water in his veins until MECO when the excitement comes out. Check out the nervous reaction of one of the Mission Specialists to the lights of the APU firing during ascent and the comment from the CDR that a guage which would go dead on and off "always does that" during ascent to his suprised pilot.

http://www.insideksc.cjb.net:8081/wwwroot_45/DIVX/sts-113/STS-113_divx_video.htm (check out, Launch Replay -- Endeavour Flight Deck with audio (T-31 seconds through SRB Separation) AND Launch Replay -- Endeavour Flight Deck with audio (from 3g throttling through MECO/ET Sep)

2. Ever ballooned a landing flare? How about in the shuttle?

http://www.insideksc.cjb.net:8081/wwwroot_45/DIVX/sts-112/sts112_divx_video.htm (check out the three videos that start with "Landing")

I'll post more tonight to this thread including...

The landing with 3 bounces of the shuttle during the Enterprise testing phase, the near gear up landing and subsequent near tail strike of STS-3 at Whitesand, and the massive side load of a crosswind landing of Discovery that destroyed every tire.

I want to make clear my fascination with landing misteps of shuttle crews is not to place blame on crews, but rather that it shows (to me at least) that real people fly these really amazing machines. That to that makes it all just the more impressive.

Oh and though I can't find video of it I will post the story of the shuttle that landed 600 feet before the runway began...

Cheers...

 

[ShawnC]

Got some new ammo to throw up on my video archive. Thanks cool vids.

 

[saabcaptain]

Wait till I post the STS-3 landing... gear was down and locked less than 2 seconds prior to weight on wheels at a height of less than 30 feet. Then he does a super hard touchdown followed by rerotating when the nose wheel was a mear inch or too from the surface to a height where not only does the orbiter almost go airborne AGAIN (you can see the struts extend) but the tail skid gets within inches of the desert. The Navy astronaut doing public commentary for the networks actually said "that was an ok landing... for a marine", a reference to the Marine commander of STS-3. Wasn't all his fault, they used the autopilot to 100 feet (never before was it flown that low, nor NEVER AGAIN... it flew the approach to fast down low) and at the time they were using airspeed NOT height for determining when to lower the gear (which was corrected for STS-4 lest disaster occur.)

 

[Big Duke Six]

DIVX

OK guys, how can I get a divx file to play?

Thanks in advance!

 

[saabcaptain]

Download and install the free file here (pick the one for your type of computer obviously...)

http://www.3ivx.com/download/index.html

 

[saabcaptain]

3. STS-3 landing (near gear up, hard touchdown, secondary overrotation)

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/features/000414overhaul/sts03_qt.html

4. Shuttle landing tests where in front of Prince Charles the shuttle enters a PIO, pilot induced ocillation (in part due to faulty fly by wire software that made the problem worse) and does several bounces.

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/movie/STS/HTML/EM-0043-02.html

and in SLOW MO ...

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/movie/STS/HTML/EM-0043-03.html

 

[Wiggums]

So what is the target speed on final for the STS?

 

[ShawnC]

So what is the target speed on final for the STS?

Can't tell you the number, but I can tell you how they got to that number.

They went to the top of the launch tower, and dropped a brick. Measured it's terminal velocity, thats the target speed.

 

[saabcaptain]

I will look it up but it obviously varys with weight and was over 200 knots, I think 200-215 or so (touchdown speed, the extension would have been higher). The way they did it on STS-2 and STS-3 (STS-1 dropped it early since it was the first flight) was to have the pilot (the FO or copilot) extend the gear when a certain speed was reached based on the desired profile. This was supposed to average 200-100 AGL. On STS-3 the only shuttle mission that used autopilot below 5000 feet or so (in this case autopilot was disconnected sometime between 100 and 50 feet AGL) the speed was much greater than expected and the pilot only lowered the gear coming through 100-80 feet AGL. Gear was down and locked mere feet before touchdown. There was a huge study that this unusual landing brought about and the landing profiles were changed greatly. All though still "certified" for autoland the shuttle never was flown on auto so low again, and in fact most commander start flying the shuttle from 100,000 feet - 30,000 feet depending on personal preference.

 

[Flying Illini]

"Yeah, I hand fly once I get below 100,000 feet."

How many people can say that?!

 

[ShawnC]

Always liked this one:

Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I am 80,000 feet and Climbing.

— sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location on Kadena AB Okinawa.

The best I ever say was on a plaque on the wall at Seminole lake. It's the traditional mission plaque that the astronauts have made to give out to supporters. It's signed (been a while since I have been there, so this is just the gist of it):

Knut,
Who says you can't cross country with a 1:4 glider

Note the traditional glider has L/D of 28:1.