Vol. 36, No. 3 February 14, 1997 MissionMission UpdateUpdate Spaceport News America's gateway to the universe. Leading the world in preparing and launching missions to Earth and beyond. John F. Kennedy Space Center Hubble servicing calls MSL-1 transfer into payload canister Jan. 31 in the Operations and for dazzling array of Checkout Building. crew aids and tools The STS-82 astronauts are STS-83 carrying with them a tool kit of more than 150 items to help Columbia (22nd flight) them service the Hubble Space 83rd Shuttle flight Telescope for the second time. Target launch date: April 3, Mission Specialists Mark Lee 2:01 p.m. and Steve Smith will be per- Pad: 39A forming Extravehicular Activi- Mission: Microgravity Sci- ties (EVAs) one and three and ence Laboratory-1 Greg Harbaugh and Joe Tanner (MSL-01) will service the telescope during Duration:16 days EVAs two and four. Crew: Halsell; Still; Voss; When the Lee-Smith team is Thomas; Gernhardt; performing a spacewalk, Tanner Linteris; Crouch will serve as the Intravehicular (IV) crew member, overseeing THE SPACE SHUTTLE Discovery cuts a bright swath through the early-morning activities from inside the orbiter. darkness as it lifts off from Launch Pad 39A on a scheduled 10-day flight to service the GOES-K Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Liftoff of Mission STS-82 occurred on-time at 3:55:17 Smith will perform the same a.m. EST, Feb. 11, 1997. Leading the veteran crew is Mission Commander Kenneth D. function during Harbaugh-Tan- Bowersox. Scott J. “Doc” Horowitz is the pilot. Mark C. Lee is the payload commander. ner EVAs. Geostationary Operational Rounding out the seven-member crew are Mission Specialists Steven L. Smith, Gregory The astronauts spent two J. Harbaugh, Joseph R. “Joe” Tanner and Steven A. Hawley. Hubble was deployed in Environmental Satellite-K 1990 and designed to be serviced on-orbit about every three years. STS-82 marks the years training for their complex Target launch date: April 24 22nd flight of Discovery and the 82nd Shuttle mission. mission. The tools and aids are ELV: Atlas I classified as Space Support Pad: 36B KSC contractors recognized for Equipment (SSE). They range Mission: Next generation from a simple bag for carrying weather satellite providing safety programs and initiatives some of the smaller tools to so- improved weather imagery NASA KSC Safety hosted an and verified that they have phisticated computer-controlled and atmospheric sounding awards ceremony in Headquar- achieved their established goals power tools, and are categorized information. ters Jan. 23. Acting Deputy Di- resulting in measurable safety into two subgroups: Crew Aids rector Jim Jennings recognized program improvements. and Tools. KSC contractors for excellent Accident Prevention Certifi- Crew Aids are fixed-in-place STS-84 safety statistics, safety initia- cate recipients were: Digital or portable equipment items, tives and significant safety pro- Equipment Corp.; I-Net Inc.; other than hand tools, used to Atlantis (19th flight) gram improvements in Fiscal Lockheed Martin Manned Space assist crew members in accom- 84th Shuttle flight Year 1996. The KSC Safety Systems; NYMA Inc.; Railroad plishing mission tasks. Crew Target launch date: May 15 Awards include: Track Construction Corp.; Sun aids include handrails, Pad: 39A • The Accident Prevention Coast Services Inc.; Thiokol handholds, transfer equipment, Mission: 6th Shuttle-Mir Certificate, presented to con- Corp.; and Wang Federal Inc. protective covers, tethering de- Docking; Spacehab- tractors who had no "lost time" The Safety Initiatives Awards vices, grapple fixtures, foot re- Double Module accidents for the fiscal year; were presented to EG&G straint sockets, and stowage and Duration: 9 days • The Safety Initiatives Florida and Rockwell Aerospace parking fixtures. Crew: Precourt, Collins, Award, recognizing contractors (now United Space Alliance). Tools are hand-operated de- Foale, Noriega, Lu, who have developed, planned Center Director's Awards vices that allow spacewalking Clervoy (ESA), and successfully implemented were presented to Dynamac astronauts to more efficiently Kondakova(Russia). safety initiatives; and Corp.; I-Net Inc.; McDonnell perform intricate, labor-inten- Linenger (STS-81) and • The Center Director's Douglas Space and Defense Sys- sive tasks. Tools can be used to Foale change places on Award, recognizing contractors tems Inc.; United Space Alli- perform such tasks as accessing Mir. who have completed the criteria ance; and USBI. Awards cer- for the Safety Initiatives Award emony photos are on Page 7. (See HUBBLE, Page 8) Page 2 SPACEPORT NEWS February 14, 1997 Sterling Smith gets additional post in Employees of the Month payloads world HONORED in January — (front row, from left) Cathy Giesler, Procurement Office; Joyce Stevens, Installation Sterling Smith has been Operations; Sharon Pine, Space Station designated Hardware Integration Office; (back row, acting di- from left) Michael Bolger, Engineering rector, Pay- Development; Richard Bates, Shuttle Processing; Dicksy Hansen, Chief load Financial Officer's Office; Suzanne Ground Stuckey, Chief Counsel's Office; Bet Systems in Eldred, Administration Office; and Steve the Payload Chance, Payload Processing. Not shown: Daniel McNerney, Safety and Processing Mission Assurance; and SuSu Wong, Director- Logistics Operations. Smith ate. He con- tinues to hold his present title of deputy director of Payload KSC managers to speak at Quality Conference in March Processing. KSC will be well-represented Kent Black, chief executive of ics as Measuring for Success, at the 1997 Conference on Qual- United Space Alliance, the Single Process Initiative and In- ity in the Space and Defense NASA Space Flight Operations tegrated Compliance Manage- Editor's Industries, being held March 3– Contract organization (SFOC). ment. Note: A cur- 4 in Houston. This year's conference focuses Also participating from KSC rent photo of The conference is sponsored on the new partnering initia- are Tom Breakfield, director of Shannon by the Aviation/Space and De- tives emerging between NASA Safety and Mission Assurance Bartell was fense Division of the American and the Defense Department. and Hector Delgado, KSC not avail- Bartell Society for Quality Control. Issues such as acquisition re- Safety and Shuttle Upgrades able for the NASA Associate Administrator form, rapid change initiatives Directorate. Jan. 31 Spaceport News is- for Policy and Plans Alan and the changing role of quality For more information about sue announcing her Senior Ladwig will deliver the keynote will be discussed. the conference, contact Helen Executive Service appoint- address. Other speakers include Panels will focus on such top- Schneider, tel. 817 776-3550. ment as director, Payload Flight Systems, Payload Processing Directorate. Spaceport News goes electronic Note of The “under construction” Appreciation sign frequently seen on fledgling Editor's Note: The follow- Web site pages could easily ap- ing message is from Tom ply to transition the Spaceport and Rob Breakfield to their News is undergoing. fellow KSC employees: The 35-year old publication is During the past several weeks the being converted to an all-elec- reality of the frequently used tronic production process that AN EARLY issue of Spaceport News, scanned with the Silverscanner III. expression, "The KSC family," has will save money and allow in- all rolled into one. Knowledge of Tiff files directly from electronic been very indelibly impressed upon clusion of more late-breaking our hearts with the incredible the hardware and software also sources such as digital photo outpouring of concern, love and news. is essential. Support for the con- files on the Internet. prayers for our family in the death Spaceport News was first version is being provided by Photos and text are given to of our father and grandfather, Paul published on Dec. 13, 1962. Sherikon Space Systems' the printer, C&R Designs, T. Breakfield Jr. Words cannot There was no KSC then, just the express the encouragement and Graphics Department . Titusville, stored on a SyQuest consolation that we have received NASA Launch Operations Cen- The electronic Spaceport disk with 88 megabytes of from your many acts of kindness that ter on Cape Canaveral. Staffers News is produced on a memory. A single issue, without have helped us through this tragedy. pecked away on manual type- Macintosh PowerPC, chosen for embedded photo images, can Thank you for the cards, letters and writers and their stories would phone calls of encouragement, its compatibility with Microsoft take up as much as five mega- flowers and contributions in his later be set into type by a Word documents generated on bytes of memory. memory, and most of all for your printer. The production process IBM-type PCs. A second hard At C&R Designs, the elec- prayers. To those of you who took longer and required more drive will be added to provide tronic files are printed to an participated in the recovery, and people expert in different skills. those who gave their time and effort adequate memory. image setter which prints di- to speed that process, we will Photos were sized manually us- Each issue is laid out in rectly to film. forever be grateful. The Kennedy ing a proportion wheel. Pagemaker 6.0. Photos are ei- Eventually, the paper will go Space Center workforce truly is With desktop publishing, the ther scanned in using a LaCie totally electronic and the issue "family" and we are very proud to editor becomes a graphics de- be part of it. Silverscanner III and Adobe and photos will be transmitted signer, photographer and writer Photoshop 3.0, or converted into via modem. February 14, 1997 SPACEPORT NEWS Page 3 Indea Jackson (left) helps Fritz Widick with paperwork while Helen Johnson and Cindy Wicker check forms. KSC bids farewell to old friends and coworkers departing NASA The third civil service buyout opportunity for NASA employees came to a close Feb. 3 as the last workers completed processing out.