Launch on Need

by Daniel Guiteras

  “Left wing, ten inches off the centerline, adjacent to left main gear door,” Altin blurted out. “X-oh at eleven-thirty-two-point-eight-seventeen, Y-oh at sixty-four-point-zero-four-seven.” Altin was referring to the X, Y, Z, three-dimensional coordinate system used by NASA to identify the exact location of every component on an orbiter and shuttle stack.

  “Fine,” Senca said. “Now can you tell us what’s directly beneath those two tiles?”

  “Well, you’ve got metal,” Altin said. “An aluminum frame member, so you’re somewhat lucky there. Directly above that are helium and nitrogen tanks. Course, if you burn through that far, the tanks will be the least of your problems.” Altin flattened the paper with his hand so he could read and enter the other three tile ID codes.

  Chapter 60

  Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  CNN Mobile Studio

  “OKAY, WE’RE STARTING to get our first pictures now from NASA. It’s live video actually, not still pictures, this video from Atlantis as it prepares to make its final approach. Atlantis is closing in. We’re told that Atlantis is less than nine nautical miles away now from its target rendezvous position with Columbia. However, it’s still expected to take another couple of hours to close this relatively short distance,” Stangley said, sharing his admiration for the space program with his CNN audience.

  “Remember now, Columbia is already flying upside down relative to Earth. Atlantis will be approaching, right side up, from below Columbia,” Stangley said, handling his two orbiter models once again. “It won’t be long until the astronauts will be able to wave to each other from their flight deck windows. I can’t imagine what the Columbia astronauts must be feeling right now, seeing Atlantis coming closer. She’s a cargo ship of fresh hope.”

  “GN&C, how do you read on targeting for rendezvous?” Guidance Navigation & Control personnel from Mission Control could be heard communicating in the background of the broadcast as Stangley spoke.

  “Now as Atlantis moves into its final rendezvous position with Columbia, the two orbiters will be only twenty feet or so apart. The two mission specialists on Atlantis, Shane Garrett and Terry Mullen, will be responsible for the actual rescue. They will physically assist the Columbia crew to Atlantis.

  “Before any Columbia astronauts are escorted, however, Garrett and Mullen will ferry replacement lithium hydroxide canisters from Atlantis to Columbia. The fresh canisters will relieve some of the worry about Columbia’s cabin-atmosphere quality, and will offer the potential for further mission length extension in the event problems or difficulties arise during the astronaut-transfer procedures.

  “In addition to the canisters, Mullen and Garrett also will transfer two additional EMUs, or Extravehicular Maneuvering Units. Those are the space suits the Columbia astronauts will wear for the transfers between the two orbiters…”

  Stangley’s expression suddenly froze. In his left earpiece, his producer had just given him an update, a piece of news that had flashed with lightning speed through the various news agencies. Stangley heard, “Atlantis has a tile problem.”

  Chapter 61

  “SO WHAT SHOULD I TELL WARNER?” Pollard demanded as she reentered the Mission Control conference room. She focused on Altin but was addressing the entire Tiger Team, including Senca. Pollard had left the engineers for a few minutes to take a call, wanting to give them a chance to talk over the situation. “Columbia’s crew is on their pre-breathe, we have two in the airlock. We need to know. Are we safe to reenter with this damage?”

  A silence fell over the room for what seemed a full minute. “Hell, I don’t know,” Altin finally said. He closed his laptop and rocked back in his chair. A quick glance at his team members told him they were equally unwilling to commit. “There’s no way we can know for sure, Julie. We have no way to fix the tiles, no other orbiter ready to go up. That means it’s all Atlantis.”

  “An educated guess is what I’m looking for, something that tells us it’s reasonable to assume the heat shield will hold despite the damage. What does our collective knowledge base tell us?” Pollard pressed, then stopped for a second. She heard again Ken Brown’s directive: “Prove she’s safe to fly.” Pollard knew now there was no way to prove a safe ride home on Atlantis. “Is she safe to fly?” Pollard asked. “That’s what we need to know.”

  “My answer is yes, then,” Altin responded reluctantly. “Yes, it’s reasonable to assume the heat shield will hold, yes, it’s reasonable to assume it might not—and, yes, neither we here on the ground nor the astronauts up there have any choice but to go for it. Obviously, we recommend the shallowest possible angle for reentry, combined with a gentle back-and-forth flight path.”

  Pollard surveyed the team to make sure they were in agreement. Senca, too, nodded his approval. “Thanks guys,” she said, and turned to leave.

  “Julie,” Altin called at her back.

  She stopped and looked back.

  “Do we tell ’em?”

  “About the damage?” Pollard said, as if surprised by the question.

  “Right. Do we tell the crew?”

  “No need to,” Pollard answered. “We’ll uplink the flight-path changes, tell them it’s just a software update.”

  Altin nodded. Pollard glanced at Senca, offered a brusque smile to the group, then left the conference room.

  Chapter 62

  On Atlantis

  “FIFTY-FIVE FEET NOW, Houston. We have a good visualization of Columbia. I can see a lot of activity in the flight deck windows.”

  Columbia loomed upside down above Atlantis, with her payload bay doors open and vertical stabilizer pointing down at Earth.

  “You can see the crew through the windows?” Atlantis’s Cap-Com asked enthusiastically.

  “Well, no, Houston. Actually, it looks like someone is holding up a sign… give me a minute, let us drift in a little closer here,” Avery said, laughing over the comm channel. “Okay Houston, the crew is holding up a sign that reads ‘Earth or bust.’ ”

  “Roger that, Atlantis. Good to hear they haven’t lost their sense of humor.”

  Avery’s gaze was locked on the growing image of Columbia before her. Columbia was dead on target, centered perfectly in the crew optical alignment sight (COAS) mounted to Atlantis’s overhead windows. She watched for changes in her spaceship’s alignment to target, while with her right hand she manipulated the rotational hand controller (RHC), a joystick used to control Atlantis’s position in space in the three planes of pitch, roll and yaw. Atlantis’s Reaction Control System thrusters responded to Avery’s controller inputs by firing into the blackness of space.

  “Atlantis, Houston for Ed. Do you foresee a need for an extra hold at forty feet? We’re gonna need you to fly out any rotational or position errors with respect to Columbia before you close for rendezvous station, over.”

  “Ah, that’s a negative, Houston, we’re lined up right now. Columbia’s directly above us. Avery’s got us right on the money. She can take us all the way in with our current alignment, over.”

  “Roger that, way to go, Avery.”

  Atlantis continued to creep in toward Columbia at a rate of 6 inches per minute.

  “Houston for Avery. Remember, we’re holding at thirty feet for clocking.”

  “Roger, hold at thirty.”

  “Columbia, Houston, what’s the status of your EVA prep?”

  “Houston, we’re nearly ready. Less than one hour left on the pre-breathe.”

  “Copy that, Columbia. We plan to send Garrett and Mullen over to you ASAP. Need to get Atlantis set first, then perform a few housekeeping activities.”

  “Roger Houston, Columbia standing by.”

  Garrett and Mullen had been listening in on the same comm channel with Columbia and Mission Control. “Houston, Garrett and Mullen standing by for PBD opening.”

  Watching the radar data from an Atlantis flight-deck computer screen, Rivas called out the last few feet to target for Avery, Mission Control, the crew of
Columbia—and those watching live TV throughout the world.

  “Thirty-six… thirty-five… thirty-four… thirty-three… thirty-two… thirty-one… Houston, three-zero feet and holding, the cavalry has arrived.”

  “Roger, we copy, Atlantis. Hold at three-zero feet.”

  Avery was conscious of history being made. As Columbia loomed in the windows overhead, she also knew she was the first commander in shuttle history to see this incredible view.

  “Houston, Commander Dana Avery reporting from the flight deck of Atlantis. I have the smiling faces of Columbia in sight.”

  Chapter 63

  Johnson Space Center, Houston

  Press Room

  STANGLEY FORCED a hard swallow, hoping the reflexive movement would reset the muscles of his throat, freeing him to speak again.

  “We’re breaking right now for a statement from Pollard,” the producer said into Stangley’s earpiece. “Take us out!”

  “Ah, we’re going to break away now to a live press statement from NASA,” Stangley said. “Julie Pollard, Columbia’s mission manager, is ready with the latest rescue mission update.”

  Stangley waited for the red light above his camera to go out. Then he quickly pulled out his earpiece and got up from the news desk. “What tile damage?” Stangley demanded of his producer. “What happened to Atlantis?”

  “Shhh,” she said, and motioned him over to a monitor showing a live feed of Pollard, who’d just taken the podium in front of a small gathering of reporters at Mission Control.

  “Shit, she doesn’t look good,” Stangley said. “She looks tired and worried.”

  Pollard adjusted the microphone, then began.

  On Atlantis

  “ATLANTIS, HOUSTON, you’re go for clocking.”

  “Roger, go for clocking,” Avery replied.

  Avery was ready for the clocking maneuver, had practiced it what seemed like a thousand times in the simulator, and she was eager to get Atlantis into position so the transfer of Columbia’s crew could begin.

  Avery adjusted herself in her seat before grasping Atlantis’s rotational hand controller. There were two critical tasks to complete with respect to flying her spacecraft. The first was to rotate Atlantis 90 degrees in relation to Columbia’s current position, a maneuver best explained by imagining Columbia positioned with her nose aligned at twelve o’clock on an imaginary clock face, and in a parallel plane 30 feet below, Atlantis aligned at three o’clock. This positioning was important to minimize the chance of contact between the vertical stabilizers, the orbiters’ vertical tail fins, while Columbia and Atlantis were in close proximity for the astronaut transfer.

  After rotating Atlantis into position, Avery’s second task would be to bring Atlantis another 10 feet closer to Columbia, thereby bringing the orbiters to within just 20 feet of each other.

  “Commencing rotation,” Avery called on the comm channel. She twisted the hand controller with the skill of a seasoned gamer. The reaction control yaw jets barked in short bursts, gently moving Atlantis about its Z axis (yaw), just as Avery had intended. As Atlantis neared the desired ending position, Avery goosed the controller carefully in the opposite direction to slow Atlantis’s rotation and to bring the spacecraft to a stop on the mark.

  “On at ninety degrees, Houston. Beginning proximity closing.”

  “Atlantis, Houston, we copy.”

  Rivas called out the closing distance as Avery guided Atlantis even closer to Columbia.

  “Twenty-nine feet… twenty-eight… twenty-seven… twenty-six… twenty-five… five feet to go, Houston, lots of waving hands in the windows!”

  Avery blinked to release her tears of pride as she listened to Rivas call out the distance marks. She watched her fellow astronauts, her friends, frantically waving from Columbia’s overhead flight deck windows. Real people growing closer in a slow-motion rendezvous.

  “God, they must be glad to see us,” she said softly.

  Johnson Space Center, Press Room

  “Good morning,” Pollard said. Her first words were delivered in a solemn tone of concern, triggering a hundred flashes from camera-toting reporters. Ever since the rescue mission began on Columbia flight day five, Pollard had started her nearly daily updates by announcing how many days Columbia had been in space. Considering Atlantis had just arrived on orbit less than 24 hours earlier, most thought it would be something she’d mention. But Pollard said nothing about which day in space it was for Columbia or Atlantis. This somewhat odd departure was not lost on the reporters, or anyone else who had been following the rescue mission.

  “Early this morning,” Pollard began, “approximately two hours after the launch of Atlantis, engineers from our Thermal Protection Shield Team, in union with launch-imaging experts, viewed both the launch videos and ultra-high-resolution satellite images obtained of Atlantis’s heat shield. The following are their conclusions.” The camera flashes continued, mixed in with the sounds of a few old-school film camera motor drives and digital-camera beeps. “At fifty-seven-point-eight seconds after launch, two separate pieces of insulating foam broke away from the external tank, striking the underside tile surface of Atlantis. One piece of foam measured approximately four-and-a-half inches by five inches by two inches. The other piece was slightly smaller in all dimensions. The launch video captured each piece of foam as it broke away from the ET; however, the exact path each piece of foam took while falling cannot be seen in the launch videos or still images.

  “As a result of the falling foam, five individual tiles have sustained moderate to severe damage. We do not yet know the exact mechanism of damage. However, engineers are rather certain that the foam pieces ricocheted between the orbiter and its mounting hardware on the ET. The small foam fragments likely got caught in the turbulent, hurricane-like airflow between Atlantis and ET, and were subsequently thrown into Atlantis’s protective tiles.

  “Although the tile damage created gaps in Atlantis’s Thermal Protection System,” Pollard continued, “engineers believe tiles adjacent to the damaged areas can still provide sufficient heat dissipation for reentry. This of course assumes the integrity of the damaged tiles remains sound—that is to say the damage lies solely in the gouges themselves and those adjacent tiles have not been fractured or loosened. It should be noted that the reinforced carbon-carbon wing panels of Atlantis have been cleared. They are free of damage,” Pollard emphasized, and briefly let her gaze sweep the assembled reporters.

  “The transfer of Columbia’s crew to Atlantis is set to begin within the next hour. This of course is barring unforeseen problems. The first two Columbia astronauts have nearly completed their pre-breathe protocol in Columbia’s airlock. Garrett and Mullen of the Atlantis crew will soon be heading to Atlantis’s airlock to don space suits for their EVA. Before they start the rescue EVA procedure, they’ll open the payload bay doors and get the suits ready. They have a few housekeeping duties to perform before the rescue transfer can commence.

  “Aside from the tile damage, all systems aboard Atlantis are nominal at this time. Updates will be issued as information becomes available. Currently, the rescue mission is on track and is progressing as well as can be expected.”

  Pollard looked up from her prepared remarks and said, “I will now take a few questions.” She knew the statement would prompt a salvo of questions. She was so tired, though, so numb from worry and stress, that when the hands shot up like third graders eager to impress their teacher, she found herself unable to decide whom to call on first.

  When Pollard’s hesitation grew too long, a reporter blurted out, “How can you be sure the heat shield will hold?”

  As Pollard struggled to form an answer, someone else yelled out, “What difference does it make? Atlantis has to come in, damaged or not.”

  “I understand the concern the tile damage raises,” Pollard said, hoping to quell the group’s fear and regain control of the press conference. “Rest assured, we are not facing reentry with the thought that the crew mig
ht not make it, that the tiles may not hold. Atlantis will undoubtedly land with the greatest amount of tile damage we’ve ever seen. That is, the damage sustained during liftoff, plus any further damage incurred during reentry.”

  “Have you told or are you going to tell the crew about the tile damage?” another reporter asked.

  “No. The crew will not ask. It’s standard operating procedure for the crew to work their mission on schedule and as trained. If Mission Control does not bring a problem to the crew’s attention, then the crew assumes there is no problem. We want the rescue crew’s full focus to be on returning home. The procedures they must execute in order to safely transfer Columbia’s crew to Atlantis must proceed unimpeded. We can’t have them preoccupied with worry about the tile damage. And Columbia’s crew, who undoubtedly have endured just about all they can, shall not be further burdened by concerns of a possible failure on reentry.”

  Chapter 64

  Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  CNN Mobile Studio

  STANGLEY COULDN’T BELIEVE what he’d heard Pollard say. He felt like some rookie, like the countless so-called science reporters he’d met over the years, who knew little and cared even less about the subject about which they were reporting. In his waking and sleeping nightmares over the past two weeks, Stangley had imagined a hundred different scenarios of how Atlantis might fail to make orbit and how the crew of Columbia could die in space. But he was embarrassed to admit that the idea that Atlantis’s tiles could be severely damaged during launch much the way Columbia’s had been, well, that was not something he’d seriously considered. Sure, he knew Atlantis would launch with the same type of ET Columbia used, that there would be no time to implement any changes or improvements to the design of the tank’s foam insulation. He knew all that, but he’d forgotten to consider how falling foam could cripple Atlantis and prevent the rescue crew from saving Columbia’s seven, even if Atlantis made it to orbit. He made a mental note to call Brown as soon as he got off the air to verify the extent of Atlantis’s tile damage.