CHALLENGER STS-6 MISSION

[Music] this is the asent uh liftoff for those of you who weren't fortunate enough to be there uh very fortunate from our standpoint but I understand from the folks on the ground was one of the clearer days we've ever had in Florida when when the solids get a hold of you right here you know you're going where those solids want to go and you hope that something keeps them pointed in the right direction because you're on your way the role as reported before was not disconcerting or confusing in any way you know that that's about uh a 90 Dee roll there as soon as you clear the PAD as both said we were kind of prepared for more shaking and cl ing in vibration than we actually had we're approaching SRB sep here you see tail off there are the set Motors and uh as I say those cause it to Fall Away in the right direction this is a view of the uh of the track tracking and data relay satellite in the bay this is as we were elevating it from the stowed position to the 29 degree checkout position it moved a phrase I used earlier in the uh with management today was that thing just move majestically it uh is quietly silently as a matter of fact and almost inexorably goes about its its thing this is a as it was moving up toward the final attitude 45° you can see on our protractor that was our minimum elevation angle once it got to 45 if everything else was okay that thing was going whether we got the 58 or not now that's the nozzle of the solid rocket motor and this is the instant of separ a as Don said we really had to kind of check the television view from this aspect to see that it was in fact deployed absolutely perfect deployment mechanically it came straight out of the ASC the Airborne support equipment with no rates just at uh again at it's 4/10 of a foot a second which isn't all that fast and now at about a minute after deploy as we thrust backward toward it and you're not sure the thing is really clear the Orbiter but that does cause you to pitch down also or away from the thing but it nevertheless it gets its attention when you're thrusting back toward a 17 or 18 ton piece of metal in the sky the white part is the IUS the the inertial Leer stage here's where we start to uh to thrust toward it and Pitch down this is the FCS flight control system checkout we do it uh every flight on the vehicle that uh is story operating a camera to take data for the uh continuous flow electr fesa system experiment this is once a joint venture between McDonald Douglas and Johnson and Johnson which they have every confidence is going to have direct earthborne application very shortly he's uh he was taking some photos of the the streams up there and down here he's uh getting ready to change out some samples Don was basically uh he was a housekeeper and you can see that he kept a a nice neat ship down here you know there not a lot of trash and equipment and items hanging on the lockers and on the bulkhead and and that really helped a lot and this was flight day two here while uh bo was telling the world about the getaway specials they were mounted in those three canisters we did a antenna test which necess itated us getting Crossways to our velocity vector and then rolling at 2° a second we took some pictures of it and I tell you it was a little more impressive from on board than it is here but nevertheless it was a a welcome diversion from just going around the world with a payload Bay facing the Earth all the time this was on Eva day that's story and Dawn in the airlock beginning their pre-breathe you know requires three and a half hours of pre-breathe on 100% oxygen to make sure or to have better assurances that we flushed nitrogen out of the system so folks don't get the bends when they're exposed to the lower pressures in the suit B was cleaning up the airlock and uh making sure that everything was ready for him this photo was taken through a uh no this is from the AFT TV cameras that's the airlock hatch being opened in preparation for airlock egress and this is story like a uh butterfly coming out of its Crysis I'll discuss the uh extra vehicle activity or The Space Walk the thing we wanted to test and evaluate there was our ability to do construction type work repair type work in the environment of the U the shuttle Orbiter we want to check out our suits and the life support systems on the back that we call emus we wanted to evaluate how we check them out before we take them into the airlock and depress and take them outside we did have three suits on board we want to look at our ability to move about into payload Bay up and down the lons or up and down the long distance of the payload Bay and across the bulkheads 4 and half we want to look at our safety tether Dynamics the safety tether we wear to be sure that we stay connected uh to the Orbiter we want to exercise various tools winches and in summary our basic ability to do work constructive type work or repair type work in the environment of the Orbiter Don here is back at the IUS tilt table this is in the AFT in he's using a ratchet wrench here to uh reposition some equipment the story mentioned before their their practice run through of the IUS tilt table Resto mechanism for which we have a an Eva procedure it's just kind of a g-wiz thing I tell you this this thing really does have a a Star Wars effect 65 ft is a long way back and that's a big vehicle and it's still surprising you look back you're in orbit you're in a spacecraft and a damn thing is got Wings in a tail it just it seems innocuous and and when those guys were in the back end of the vehicle they were far enough away and and everything just absolutely silent you know you're Gliding Over the Earth uh due to some some fortunate magic and and they're back there having a heck of a good time in this case and uh it really does have it's more star warsy than Star Wars I think except Star Wars spaceships have wings also this is as we were going down we we fortunate here that's a West Coast of Mexico just below guadalahara where it kind of bends from the southeast to the east Southeast so we were zinging right along the Mexican Coast which has no significance except I think it makes for a nicer looking picture than if you had nothing down there you notice on the fin the rudder is offset to the left a little bit up there that kind of surprised me it turns out in talking to folks afterward that the flight control system checkout leaves The Rudder Park to the left and uh it's nothing to be concerned about that's just what it does now those are all daylight scenes here are some with the with the uh the film compensates for the the lack of overall Illumination in the in the cargo bay I think story mentioned that uh the helmet mounted lights were for all practical purposes essential and at the payload Bay flood lighting was not adequate to do your tasks story here is using the uh Eva wench that uh is utilized for several different tasks this is on the Ford bulkhead and it's routed down to just pointed to an exro Genie down there which is used only to provide a load on the uh on the line that we use here we're doing some suit Mobility checks kind of uh uh reach envelope determination suit stability and Mobility evaluation seeing if there were any objectionable uh lockups in the uh in any of the the bearings see if you could put it in one position where you wanted it keep it there so-called neutral point performance of the emus was just like the performance of the vehicle it was uh we've had some bad starts but uh they all they both work like Champs in this particular Evolution and we're very gratified by that also this is getting back into the airlock turns out we have a little work to do on uh the term story used is choreographing this Evolution and that that's a very good term I think is that uh as far as our procedures for getting out of and into the airlock this is on the last day of the flight when we had our impromptu uh conversation with a vice president and we decided we were uh notified during the flight that we had the dubious distinction of uh of being the in average age the oldest crew to ever fly anytime anywhere these were taken from the TV photo Chase on return to Edwards you can see the weather was as good out there for entry as it was at uh in Florida for the launch this is through the HUD through the head up display the HUD was a tremendous asset I feel toward making what subjectively from uh from the operator's point of view that I thought was a a relatively smooth approach and Landing here we are in a flare preparation for landing this almost counts as a Carrier Landing as you'll see in the next photo by an overwater approach here Edward dry a lake bed right uh we found a little turbulence one gust on Final on the Final Approach and it just sailed right through it with with no crew response necessary uh the touchdown was nominal uh from my standpoint anyway relatively smooth I didn't hear any gasps so you guys might all been holding your breath or something speed brakes are starting open our standard procedure as soon as the main gear on Deck I call speed brakes open and B manually opens the speed brakes to help impart some drag to it but anyway it's starting to come together folks the whole system is uh I we're on our way did feel good to be back on the ground again even though it was a tremendously exhilarating experience but that is just such a a huge impressive vehicle especially when it's sitting on the ground I cannot say from my own personal standpoint how pleased I was with the performance uh of this vehicle and I just can't say too much about this vehicle which demonstrates to me the maturity of the entire shuttle program the shuttle transportation system