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Space Shuttle Gains Remote-Control Landing Capability
rufey writes "An article over at Space.com mentions two new tools that Space Shuttle Discovery will have aboard during its upcoming flight, designated STS-121, scheduled to lift off on July 1, 2006. One tool is for tile repair. The other tool is a 28-foot-long cable that would be used to connect an avionics bay located on the mid-deck with the flight-deck controls. The cable enables flight controllers on the ground to land the Shuttle completely by remote control, including the ability to lower the landing gear. The remote control landing would be used in the case where the Shuttle was damaged to the point that it would be too risky to land it with humans aboard, but could be landed without humans aboard in an attempt to save the vehicle. The astronauts would take refuge on the ISS while mission control in Houston attempt to land a damaged Shuttle."
IIRC, The soviet space shuttle Buran (Snowstorm) had remote landing capabilities from the start of the project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Buran
So far, the ISS has always only be filled up to the number of people that can be immediately evacuated with the always-attached escape vehicle. Now, we're filling it up more? I understand this is an emergency, but imagine the ISS gets hit by space junk and 3 people can go back to earth while the other have to wave goodbye on the ISS and die?
Additionally, I think the Space Shuttle needs to load a connector to dock to the ISS - will this now be always loaded into the cargo bay or what?
A 28 ft long cable to "remote-control" the shuttle ? they are not gonna go far this time, are they ? ;)
-S
including the ability to lower the landing gear
Yes, I suppose that's sort of a "must have" feature when landing a big glider-like object.
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The controls seem fairly intuitive, but I wonder if the budget is ready for it's upkeep and operational costs.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
The Shuttle Orbiter already has automatic landing capabilities. Although the system has never been used all the way to touchdown, the Orbiter does make most of its trip back to the ground on autopilot until the commander takes over of the controls as it nears landing.
The last I heard the landing gear release was a simple manual switch with no connection to the flight control system. TFA describes the new cable as a "Data Cable" so there must also be a new connection between a computer system and the landing gear switch.
Its strange that this was not mentioned in the article. Perhaps this change was made earlier?
Oh and BTW I am still reading the apollo 17 ALSJ and much is made of the exploding foam incidents on apollo 16 and 17. The stuff was literally rocketing up into the sky around the LM during both missions. You would think that somebody would think (foam == bad) as a part of the lessons learnt from apollo. Drilling holes in the stuff is clearly not enough.
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the shuttle lands you !
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" ... including the ability to lower the landing gear".
You know you're landing gear up when it takes full throttle to taxi.
Does no-one remember seeing the prototype for this being demonstrated in Airplane II (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083530/)?
"Well at least we got the vehicle back! Let's get some beer!"
It only took what, 20 years?
... oh ... wait ... nevermind ...
I'm sure next they'll announce a new re-useable capsule ala soyuz, going back to the cheap&reliable method.
It won't be used with a seriously damaged shuttle. It will be used with a marginally damaged shuttle, with the type of damage they wouldn't even have known about a few years ago, and so would have quite happily risked landing with human crew on board. Now that they're looking for certain types of damage, that's a situation they have to deal with.
Oh no... it's the future.
"But the astronauts hated the idea of just being useless cargo, so they *demanded* some human input be required."
It's more down to the fact that they hated the idea of dying because the computer lowered the landing gear in orbit. There's no way to raise the landing gear on the shuttle from inside: the hydraulic systems to do so don't exist and the landing gear doors have some heat-protection added after they're closed on the ground.
And the lack of trust of the autopilot was somewhat well founded: John Young had to fly part of Columbia's first re-entry manually because the real aerodynamics at hypersonic speed turned out to differ enough from the models that the shuttle would probably have been destroyed if there were no people on board.
Now, of course, they've done more than enough re-entries to trust the computer to fly most of the way, but you're still dead if the computer has a brain-fart and lowers the gear in space. Similarly, the Apollo command module had a switch to completely disable the system that opened the parachutes until just before landing.
The soviets have also used automated docking for a long time, something the US has still to implement afaik. The regulary launched russian progress cargo ships use this when they dock to ISS. If you havent seen it in action I recommend searching for it on youtube or google video, it looks cool :)
The best by what criterion? By costing a helluva lot more to do the same job, just to resemble travelling in a mac truck instead of a car? Just as a national penis size symbol along the lines of "we can afford to haul a giant truck into orbit, even at the expense of blowing up a few astronauts now and then"? Or maybe as a way to waste whatever space budget is left on a couple of uber-expensive flights per year instead of several flights with a smaller vehicle?
Yes, in an ideal world, where money and resources are unlimited, flying in style in a giant airplane would be cool. In the real world, you have a finite space budget. Wasting it on lifting something that size _and_ on trying to patch an unsafe design is actually detrimental. The same budget would allow a helluva lot more if it wasn't wasted on the shuttle.
Even the original shuttle design would disaggree with your assessment that the current shuttle is good. Just as a quick reminder:
The original shuttle design was, basically, the equivalent of a car. It was little more than a reusable capsule with wings. It was supposed to be reusable, cheap, safe, and pay for itself by doing lots of trips up and down. It also had buggerall cargo space and was only supposed to go into sane orbits.
Except NASA didn't have the budget for it. So they look at who else has a budget to put stuff in orbit: the Airforce. They're shooting these huge spy satellites into space. So NASA goes to the Airforce and says basically "you know, if you gave us your l(a)unch money, we could put those satellites in orbit for you safer and cheaper. And even bring them back down if needed! You won't have to launch another Titan rocket ever again. Won't that be nice?"
The Airforce payloads were, however, (A) bloody huge, and (B) went in a polar orbit, so they'd sweep over the soviet union. That's what the Airforce needed done. So if they're to give their space budget to NASA, then NASA had to guarantee they could do that. Enter the new shuttle concept: a freaking huge truck that can load one of those in its cargo bay.
Look at that huge cargo bay, and that's what it's for. It's not to give the astronauts leg room or anything, it's just big enough to pack one of those huge spy satellites.
The aftermath:
1. Even for those satellites, using a manned shuttle is fucking stupid. You don't need humans onboard to put a satellite into orbit, when a computer can do the same thing. And you don't need to deal with the media fallout when you blow up some humans. (Not to mention the irresponsibility of risking some human lives when you can do the exact same without them.) And you don't need to lift a huge ultra-expensive shuttle either, when you can just lift the satellite itself instead.
So do you want to know how those satellites are launched nowadays? By the Airforce, with a big rocket.
2. For smaller satellites, which was the original shuttle's idea, now the thing is too big and expensive. It's like using an 18 wheeler truck to haul your computer. It's just not worth it.
So how are all those satellites launched nowadays? With a smaller rocket.
3. For hauling humans into orbit, it's too big, too expensive, and too unsafe. And it becomes even more expensive by trying to patch that unsafe design.
4. But wait, isn't it used to haul materials up to the ISS? Isn't that worth having a huge flying truck? Well, guess what? The same applies as for the Airforce's satellites: the cargo can go up with a cheap rocket just as well. A computer can put it into any kind of orbit you want it in. And the Russians have been doing just that, for a fraction of the cost, _and_ more reliably. Who do you think supplies the ISS when the shuttle is grounded for months trying to figure out what foam to use and where? Right. Traditional Russian rockets do.
Even if you needed something assembled into space, there's no reason whatsoever to carry the humans and the cargo together. You can put the humans up with a small shuttle and whatever cargo they need up with a rocket.
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I remember hearing that it was a political move by the astronaut office that the landing gear had to be manually deployed, assuring them a job for the duration of the program.
You heard wrong. The shuttle gear is deployed manually to ensure that a short circuit doesn't inadvertently extend the gear while the shuttle is still in orbit, thus causing the tires and hydraulics to explode in the vacuum of space, rendering the shuttle unable to land.
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Just wondering. I realize that it would only be used in an extreme emergency... and that even if the remote landing system didn't work properly, the surface of the earth is very large and the risk to people on the ground would be small.
I also wonder whether it wouldn't be possible (and perhaps safer) to use the shuttle's remaining fuel to lift it into some stable orbit... (thereby, of course, only postponing the problem).
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... and it's not a conspiracy theory - it's because there's enough room for three people and a few post-it notes.
Getting in a Soyuz simulator un-suited is an unpleasant experience. Doing it for real is only for very dedicated people.
This is not something that people are going to want to get into space with big-time.
We've moved from something pointing to routine space travel (shuttle class vehicles) to glorified escape pods.
Yes, their stuff is reliable - so is a 1955 GMC stepside pickup. You want to use one to get a current big budget construction job done?
If we were still flying Gemini-era equipment, there'd be a crowd here yelling about how backwards we are.
They have not distinguished themselves in expanding horizons, pushing the envelope, whatever you want to call it.
Yes, they have far less resources, but that's like saying a kart racer is the real winner at LeMans, just cause he got out there.
As for "stayed technologically superior" - if by that you mean it auto-landed, then remember the only two-orbit flight was done with no environmentals or on-board software other than what was needed to complete a pre-programmed flight. And that was it. The rest are incomplete and never flew. You may want to factor in the fact that one of the vehicles and its launch equipment sat in an old hangar so long that they and the building they sat it rotted and collapsed, killing 8 people.
I'll take existing STS over Buran any day, I'll take a 99% STS over Soyuz or CEV.
Before you bring up the safety issue - what do we find acceptable? NASCAR has had 32 drivers killed, and we still hand them $1.3B every year. NASA's FY 2007 request is $1.7B.
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My brother is an airline pilot. A Kat C procedure lets a modern airliner basicly land fully automatic (sight below 150ft.). However, if the weather conditions allow it they will land that damn thing by hand just for the fun of it (and for not to loosing training, it's said that older pilots have particularly problems flying manually because some of them get out of training due to too much auto-piloting).
Wow. This is an example of a little information being a dangerous thing.
First of all, it's called a "Category III ILS Precision Approach", not a "Kat C procedure. It requires 3 criteria to all be in place in order to be attempted. The landing facility must be equipped, certified, and current. The airplane must be equipped, certified, and current. And the pilot-in-command attempting the approach must be certified and current for Cat III approaches.
Secondly, it is not a routine landing. Not all runways at all airports are equipped with Cat III ILS. Airlines make a lot of flights to smaller airports that just have the basic Cat I or II ILS systems, or even localizer-only, ADF, or VOR non-precision approach guidance systems. Pilots land "by hand" almost all the time. The "auto-lands" are the rare occurences, and they are required to do them every so often to keep current.
Landing the space shuttle is very, very different from landing an airliner. The glideslope is ridiculously steep. There is no second chance. The shuttle is practically plummetting at between 6000 - 8000 feet per minute (normal aircraft descent at around 500 feet per minute when on approach for landing). The shuttle enters the approach pattern at over 35,000 feet. If it needs to do a 360 degree turn, it will lose over 30,000 in altitude. It has an absolutely horrible glide ratio. Its glideslope angle is 20 degrees (normal glideslope angle is 3 - 5 degrees). It comes in at almost 300 mph (waaaay too fast for any other normal aircraft). It truly is a very special aircraft.
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The Shuttle, due to it's configuration, has what is called a "non-minimum phase response" in pitch. Simply put, when you pull back on the stick, it goes down for a while first, then, after it gets sufficient angle of attack, it will start to climb. It does the opposite when you push the stick forward. That is, the increse in wing camber makes it want to go up first, then, as it pitches down, it will start to dive. So, in addition to all the issues stated above, there is also this rather nasty behavior.
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On the contrary. My father-in-law works for LockMart and he got to witness a launch from Baikonor of a LM vehicle using a motor designed with the help of (IIRC) Energia (it was basically a "here's a lot of cash, we want your motor" deal). It was the first time since Saturn that the US was able to put up such a huge payload using one of our puny non-shuttle birds. The engineers were rightfully impressed, and we have lots to thank the Russians for. Hell, all of our plans for the "shuttle replacement" look a heck of a lot like the Russian lifting-body-atop-a-tube designs.
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Especially a glider with the aerodynamic profile of a bottle of spring water with the label half torn off.
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Have the landing gear signal go through one to several interlocks (already done in all passenger planes), serially, so no signal can ever get through unless (a)... (b)... (c)... (d)...
Of course, now you've skewed to the oposite end of the spectrum -- sure, you don't have to worry about the landing gear accidentally deploying, but now you have to worry that some tiny malfunction is going to cause it not to deploy at all!
The manual system has one really good thing going for it: Simplicity.
Actually, I'll do just that: it's an utterly meaningless comparison.
1. It's not even using the same units. One is in crashes per million miles and the other is in crashes per million hours. I don't know how you compare hours to miles, but in my book that's bull. I'm sorry, but if I compared miles to hours even in a primary school science class, I'd get an F for that.
2. Then how about doing it in crashes per number of flights, then? No, seriously. If you tell me that the thing that counts is takeoff/landing and not hours or miles spent cruising, then why hand-wave in a metric that you yourself just declared meaningless?
Doubly so, when, again, it's not even apples to apples. Using hours or miles instead is only justified when you can imply that there's some proportionality between that and the things that do count. E.g., comparing accidents per million miles for two airplanes is only justified if you can imply that, on the average, a million miles means approximately as many flights for both. Now let's look at shuttles vs airplanes: for an airplane a flight is measured in hours (sometimes even less), while for the shuttle it can be as high as 17 days. So pay attention: the same number of hours does not translate into the same number of takeoffs and landings.
If you do take the number of flights into account, the same Wikipedia page tells you that there have been 2 fatal acidents in 114 flights. That's a 1.75% chance to go *boom* per flight. Now I don't know what the numbers are for commercial aviation, but something tells me that we'd have a major scandal if every 67'th flight was fatal.
3. Furthermore, for an airplane measuring it in miles or hours does make some sense, because an airplane could suffer an engine failure or terrorist attack in mid-flight too, while the shuttle is mostly just idle while in orbit. It isn't just "in cruise", it was just sitting there with the engines turned off.
4. But here's a metric that's right on that wikipedia page and might be a lot more meaningful: 2% chance to die per astronaut per flight. Again, I don't know what the numbers are for commercial aviation, but I do believe we'd have some major scandals if you had a 2% chance to die in each flight.
But to check that hypothesis, let's look at that Airplane Liability page you linked to. They say 635 fatalities in the USA in 2004. (Out of which only 13 for large commercial airlines.) If that were a 2% chance to die per flight, then in 2004 the USA would have had no more than 635 * 50 = 31,750 total persons times flights, including pilots, co-pilots, stewardesses, etc. It would also mean that only 13 * 50 = 650 people travelled with large commercial airlines. Does that sound freaking unbelievable yet? Something tells me there have been at least millions, so the the chance to die per flight must have been _much_ lower. Many orders of magnitude lower.
So basically if you take the metrics that _do_ matter, instead of handwaving in some stupid miles to hours comparison, the shuttle is a freakin' disaster compared to airplanes. It's not an exemplary safety record, it's not comparable to civilian aviation, it's just a freakin' disaster. It's several orders of magnitude less safe. If the shuttle were an airplane, no airline would want to have anything to do with it.
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Aha, Google eventually found something:
. html
http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/shuttle_control
According to Mary Shafer herself:
"After the first S-turn on STS-1, the entire re-entry was hand-flown through STS-4, at which point the FCS was rewritten (and the e-seats removed). John Young took over the flying when the sideslip meter pegged and stayed pegged for several seconds, meaning that the limit had been exceeded. This happened because L_YJ was about half the size predicted and the wrong sign and not even the extremely robust FCS could deal with that much error. Cf Iliff & Shafer, "Extraction of Stability and Control Derivatives From Orbiter Flight Data", NASA TM-4500, June, 1993."
And this time they could mean it!
The difference between a standard atmosphere and the vacuum of space is 14.696 psi. Airplane tires normally run around 120 psi. The extra ~15 psi is within the design of the tires. Also, the best information on google states that they are already exposed to vacuum.
but there are dozens other experiments that were performed each shuttle mission before the space station even existed.
Isn't that what the ISS and the other space stations were for?
The shuttle isn't just a flying semi, it's a flying semi with a extended cab that includes a lab. Why don't we just leave it up there and convert it into a space station?
The idea is simple: You launch cargo on the cheap dumb booster of the appropriate size. You launch people using a high reliability rocket, with a high reliability but simple and fairly inexpensive return vehicle. They then do their work at the station.
You do not try to use the dangerous and inefficient at everything shuttle. Though heck, why not redesign the shuttle and use it for missions from the ISS to other satellites to perform maintenance? How about doing some remodeling and launching it one last time to serve as an actual space station?
So to piggy back on your analogy they aren't just picking up milk. They are checking the oil and tire pressure, getting gas, buying lottery tickets, buying a newspaper, getting a pack of gum, and buying a Slurpee for the ride home. Only the milk makes the news.
To continue your example, all this doesn't require a truck either, it can be done with any econobox car.
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