You don’t have to show all your badges and everything this time they know who you are. There’s this police escort, of course, in front of you, with lights flashing and everything, so you feel like you’re on top of the world already … Then we arrive out at the launch pad and, at the base of the pad, security waves you on. “We wind our way through the parking lot and out onto the access road to the pad. “The van starts out slowly,” Charlie Walker told the NASA oral historian of his journey to the pad. Flying, relaxing, spending time with family members, and running through checklists consumed their final hours on the planet.Ĭlad in their blue flight suits, the STS-41D crew included America’s second female astronaut, Judy Resnik (Credits: NASA).ĭarkness still covered the Kennedy Space Center when the crew repeated the time-honored ritual in the small hours of the 26th. They circled over the launch complex and alighted on the runway of the Shuttle Landing Facility. The crew arrived in Florida aboard a fleet of four T-38 jets on the afternoon of 22 June, with liftoff anticipated three days later. Strapped into the flight deck were astronauts Hank Hartsfield, Mike Coats, Mike Mullane, and Steve Hawley, whilst downstairs on the middeck were Judy Resnik and McDonnell Douglas engineer Charlie Walker, flying as part of a commercial contract with NASA. It was 26 June 1984, and after a false start the previous day all seemed to be proceeding normally as the final seconds ticked away to the launch of Mission 41D, the maiden voyage of the new orbiter, Discovery. The calm, measured tones of NASA commentator Mark Hess provided an assurance that shuttle launches had become the stuff of routine. “T-31 seconds … We have a Go for autosequence start … Discovery’s computers now taking over primary control of vehicle critical functions until liftoff … ” This weekend’s history articles will explore the events of those five on-the-pad launch aborts and what they meant for the men and women who endured them. However, as the roar of the engines died, the astronauts were faced with two dire possibilities: to sit tight aboard the vehicle and await the arrival of recovery forces or to attempt a “Mode One Egress,” evacuating their ship, possibly running through an invisible blaze of hydrogen flames, and taking a series of slidewire baskets to safety. In those final seconds, the vehicle was at its most hazardous: fully-fueled, crewed, and ready to go. On five occasions, between June 1984 and August 1994, a handful of shuttle crews heard over the intercom a four-letter acronym that shook them to the very core: RSLS, denoting a Redundant Set Launch Sequence, indicative of a harrowing engine shutdown on the pad, right before launch. Little escape capability of substance was available until after the separation of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), two minutes into flight, and NASA engineers worried constantly about the dangers of a failure of the shuttle’s three main engines. Although its first four teams of astronauts had ejection seats, their usefulness and survivability were questioned from the outset, and from STS-5 and the increase in crew size their inclusion became so impractical that they were done away with. Throughout its 30-year career - consciously or unconsciously - the space shuttle was acknowledged to be one of the most dangerous piloted space vehicles ever brought to operational status. Close-up view of Discovery’s three main engines-still exhibiting evidence of scorching from their momentary ignition on 26 June 1984-in the wake of the shuttle program’s first RSLS abort.
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