CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Ladies and gentlemen, I now would like to call this first meeting of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident to order.
I want to make just a couple of preliminary remarks. As you know, this Commission was appointed by the President on Monday, and because of the time frame within which we are working, we wanted to start as expeditiously as possible, and the members of the Commission have been very accommodating and agreed to come to Washington yesterday.
We had a preliminary get-together to discuss our plans and where we were to go based upon the Executive Order, and we have, with the cooperation of NASA and the White House and other officials, been able to set up this meeting for this morning. The purpose of the meeting this morning is to be brought up to date on the events that have occurred since the accident, principally by officials from NASA. They have been very cooperative and have been working closely with us, and we are obviously going to rely in large part on the investigations that they have conducted and will conduct in the future.
On the other hand, as we said when the
[2] President announced the appointment of the Commission, we have our own responsibilities. We can seek other evidence, get any other information we may desire, and the NASA officials have been, as I say, very cooperative in that respect.
I would like to, by way of a beginning, refer to the Executive Order that created the Commission because we want to stick very closely to the instructions that we received from the President, and I will just read briefly the important part of that Executive Order.
It says "The Commission shall investigate the accident of the Space Shuttle Challenger which occurred on January 28, 1986, and the Commission shall:
"(1) Review the circumstances surrounding the accident to establish the probable cause or causes of the accident; and
"(2) Develop recommendations for corrective or other action based upon the Commission's findings and determinations.
"The Commission shall submit its final report to the President and to the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration within 120 days of the date of this Order."
So our first task, it seems to me, and I think
other members of the Commission, is to deal with, one, review the circumstances surrounding the accident to establish the probable cause or causes of the accident.
Now, with that opening statement, keeping in mind that is our purpose this morning, to be brought up to date on the events that have occurred since the accident, we will call on NASA officials, and I guess the first witness is Dr. Graham, if the doctor will proceed to the podium.
Doctor, I will ask the Clerk to swear you in.
THE CLERK: Do you swear the testimony you are about to give before this Commission will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
DR. GRAHAM: I do.
DR. GRAHAM: Mr. Chairman, members of the President's Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, NASA welcomes your role in considering and reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the accident of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
NASA continues to analyze the system design and data and, as we do, you can be certain that NASA will provide you with its complete and total cooperation. Along with the President, I look forward to receiving your report and to the resumption of space flight with our national Space Shuttle System.
I would like to introduce now Mr. Jesse Moore, who is NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight and also the Chairman of NASA's 51-L Data Design and Analysis Test Task Force. He will conduct the briefing.
Thank you.
THE CLERK: Do you swear the testimony you will give before this Commission will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
MR. MOORE: I do.
MR. MOORE: Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, we are here today before you to discuss the Space Shuttle Challenger accident and to talk to you about where we stand today in terms of our analysis that we have done so far as a result of that accident, and supporting me here today are various members of the NASA centers involved, as well as members of the Astronaut Office down at the Johnson Space Center.
I would like to say that we tried, in preparing this document for you, to put it together to give you a sequence of how NASA goes about getting ready for a flight, what some of the background associated with the Space Shuttle System is, and then, finally, tell you where we are with respect to the overall investigation that we are currently working on right now.
We will have to apologize because we probably have some acronyms in our document here that may be kind of difficult. Some of the charts that may come on the television screens may be difficult to read, but we have
tried to put together the best set of information we could in the time available to do it.
I would like to now proceed with the agenda, please. [Ref. 2/6-1]
I plan to cover the overview, and then I would ask various members involved in the Space Shuttle System to cover respective parts of the Shuttle, and I will start out by asking Arnold Aldrich, who is the Manager of the National Space Transportation Program Office at the Johnson Space Center to talk about the orbiter system as well as to give you some background on the Shuttle and overall performance, and then I will call upon Dr. Judson A. Lovingood of the Marshall Space Flight Center to talk to you about the responsibilities of the systems that the Marshall Shuttle Projects Office have, and then I will ask Robert Sieck of the Kennedy Space Center to talk to you about the launch and landing operations at Kennedy.
I think what is also very important to this group is the design and development process that NASA follows in acquiring hardware and software before we fly it, and we will tell you about how we do that and the overall process, preparations with respect to that aspect.
Finally, we will close with our actual flight
preparation process: How do we get ready for a flight; who is involved in getting ready for a flight, and to try to give you some background information about the overall flight process involved in the Space Shuttle Program.
The next chart shows an organization chart showing how NASA is organized from the Administrator level down to what we call the field center level, and I won't spend a lot of time [5] going into great detail on this, but I will tell you that Dr. Graham is the Acting Administrator of NASA. I report directly to Dr. Graham. I am the Associate Administrator for Space Flight. And then reporting to me institutionally are four NASA centers involved in not only the Space Shuttle program but a number of other programs in NASA. The centers are the Lyndon B. Johnson Center in Houston, Texas. They are also the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the National Space Technology Labs in Mississippi. [Ref.2/6-2]
(Viewgraph.) [Ref.2/6-3]
MR. MOORE: The next chart, please, will show a little bit more detail in terms of how I operate the Office of Space Flight. And in this chart I have four principal positions in my front office: a Deputy
position; a Deputy Associate Administrator for Technical Matters; and a Deputy Associate Administrator for Management. I have two staff functions, principal staff functions. One is looking at STS program integration, looking and making sure all elements of the program are integrated from a standpoint of program, policy and budget. Then I have a number of what I call line divisions that report to me that have various responsibilities which are listed on the chart, and I will just quickly try to let you have a feeling for what those are.
The box on the far left shows my Customer Services and Business Planning Division. That division principally interacts with the Shuttle customers to give them schedule information and planning information prior to our launches. Then I have a division called the STS, and here STS- you will see that quite a bit-stands for the Space Transportation System, Orbiter Division and Logistics Division. This division is responsible for the overall program aspects and policy aspects of the Shuttle Orbiter System, and the logistics to support the Shuttle Orbiter System, meaning all the hardware and the spares that we need to make sure the Shuttle flies.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: What does STS stand for
again?
MR. MOORE: I'm sorry, STS, you will hear that term quite a bit, stands for the Space Transportation System, and that is another way we use of talking about Space Shuttle. It is the Space Transportation System. If you look at the Space Shuttle, you can see the Space Shuttle here, and different people look at it in different ways. And some say the Space Shuttle is the orbiter only, but the Space Transportation System involves more than just the orbiter. It involves the external tank, it involves the solid rocket boosters, and all the people, facilities that we have to support it. And that is kind of what we call in broad terms the Space Transportation System.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Thank you.
MR. MOORE: In addition to our Orbiter Division we have a Propulsion Division, and this principally is, from a program standpoint, a budget and policy standpoint, responsible for the propulsive elements on the Shuttle, and those elements include the Shuttle main engines, of which there are three, the external tank which provides the fuel for the main engines on the Shuttle, and then the solid rocket boosters which provides the-a major part of the thrust during the initial ascent phase of the launch.
And then I have an STS Operations Division. This is responsible for, again, program and policy and budget related to how we operate the Shuttle in our launch operations down at the [6] Kennedy Space Center as well as in our flight operations activity that is involved and being performed at the Johnson Space Center.
There are other supporting divisions on the right-Resources, Advanced Programs, and Space Flight Development Systems. These are kind of supportive to the overall Space Transportation System, and then each of the centers listed below have various responsibilities.
And I think the next chart will kind of give you a feel for the overall management responsibilities.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref.2/6-4]
MR. MOORE: You can see the Office of Space Flight kind of looked at from an overall management point of view and not so much from an institutional point of view. My office has responsibility for policy, advocacy of the program, budget and resources, marketing, and kind of ensuring that the overall corporate structure is maintained, and then external relations interfacing with the outside world as far as the overall Shuttle is concerned.
There is a Program Office at the Johnson Space Center called Level 2, and Arnold Aldrich, whom you will be hearing from in just a minute, is the manager of this overall office. His job is overall program management integration, which means making sure that the system all plays together, that everything is ready from a systems standpoint from an overall performance, that the hardware all matches and so forth. And then there is a customer service function down at the Level 2 office as well to make sure the cargo integration and work in that area is also done appropriately.
Then, reporting to the Level 2 program offices are various project elements at the four NASA centers that I talked to you about, and I will just quickly go through from left to right the various projects and the responsibilities for these projects are the responsibilities of, on the left, the Johnson Space Center has the responsibility for the Shuttle orbiter, for the orbiter crew equipment, meaning all the components and so forth necessary for the flight crew, and also the Astronaut Offices at the Johnson Space Center, for Flight Operations, meaning at liftoff, the flight of the Shuttle, and its orbital operations and its landing operations are basically the responsibility of the Johnson Space Center, and to
actually do the payload integration, making sure that the hardware we fly in the Shuttle is properly integrated into the cargo bay prior to our launch.
The Kennedy Space Center on the next box has the responsibility for ground support equipment such as all the launch pads and all the launch facilities that are required to support the launch of a Shuttle. They have responsibility for actually launching the Shuttle, the launch operations complex at the Kennedy Center does the actual countdown and so forth prior to a launch. And then they also do the hardware payload processing prior to installing, and they actually install the payload elements into the bay of a Shuttle.
At Marshall Space Flight Center they have the responsibility for the Shuttle main engines, for the external tank, for the solid rocket booster, and for Spacelab, which is a cargo element that flies inside of the Shuttle.
As far as the NSTL-again, NSTL is National Space Technology Laboratories-they basically provide us test facilities for testing the Shuttle main engines.
Next chart.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref.2/6-5]
MR. MOORE: The next chart I'm just going to quickly let you look at. I don't intend to brief this
[7] in detail. What I have tried to do in this chart, you will see it discussed later by Mr. Aldrich. What I have tried to do in this chart is to give you a more detailed vertical cut from the previous chart, and on the right of the chart some of the specific functions that are done by this particular structure.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref.2/6-6]
MR. MOORE: Now, the next several charts will talk about the planned evolution of the Shuttle program, and this is a plan which encompasses the 1981 timeframe through the 1986 timeframe, and I will try to show to you and to your Commission what flights have been done and the kinds of things that have been done during that period of time on the various missions.
There was a phase in the program that initiated in the April 1981 timeframe and ended in late 1982 called the Orbital Flight Test Phase.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref.2/6-7]
MR. MOORE: During this phase we flew four Shuttle missions, STS missions, and as a part of those flights, we flew instrumented pallets-a pallet is a cargo element that sits inside of the cargo bay-to try to get some feel for how we could accommodate payloads in the Shuttle. We flew the RMS, another acronym-and that stands for the Remote Manipulator System,
-and that is the Shuttle's arm which we now fly routinely on most flights. We did fly our DOD, or Department of Defense, payload on one of the early flights, and we began doing some experimental flying on pharmaceuticals, doing some early experiments to see how those experiments would react to zero gravity.
Beginning in STS 5, which occurred in late 1982--
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-8]
MR. MOORE: - we began what we called the early payload capability demonstration phase, and we looked at and we did fly a large number of different kinds of payloads to give us a feel for the capabilities of the Shuttle with respect to accommodating a number of different kinds of payloads. COMSAT is short for communications satellites, and in addition to the communications satellites, we flew several upper stages during that period of time. One is the PAM, or Payload Assist Module.
Let me pause. I think we put an acronym listing in the back of your book here, and we are going to try to make that as complete as we can because we in this business do an awful lot of talking in acronyms, and I apologize for that, but there are a couple of sheets in the back of the book with acronyms. We will
try to make that more complete as time goes on.
We also flew the IUS, the Inertial Upper Stage, and you should note that we had an Inertial Upper Stage on this particular mission, 51-L, and I will come back to that point later. We also flew Spacelabs, I talked about. We did an EVA, which is an extravehicular activity where a crewperson would go outside of the Shuttle, and we also did an MMU flight, or a Manned Maneuvering Unit flight, where we actually flew a powered system away from the Shuttle and returned back to the Shuttle.
We did rendezvous on orbit, we did satellite repair, we did-on the Solar Array, and we also did a refuelling demonstration on the program. Beyond that period of time we have entered into what we call the Payload Operational Phase where we have done satellite retrievals, where we [8] have flown some DOD, additional DOD, Department of Defense payloads, and we have also done some salvage rescue operations in space with the rescue of the SYNCOM satellite last year.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-9) & 10]
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Up to that point, had the military, DOD, been involved in these programs?
MR. MOORE: The DOD has been involved in the Space Transportation System from the outset. In fact, they are working the launch pad facilities and have the responsibility now for the launch pad system development and facility development out at the Vandenberg Air Force Base. And the DOD plays a very strong role in the Shuttle program as far as working with NASA. There is a lot of interaction back and forth between the Department of Defense and NASA. A large contingent of the Department of Defense people are at the Johnson Space Center working hand in hand with our people, and we have also flown several dedicated missions on the Shuttle with the Department of Defense payloads on it.
So yes, the answer to your question is they are involved.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Has the role of the DOD changed at any point during this program?
MR. MOORE: Not in the recent past, sir. The role, in fact, it has gotten stronger. As time has gone on, I would say the role of the DOD is getting stronger in terms of their planned utilization of the Shuttle. We have plans in the latter part of this decade, the early part of the 1990s, where the DOD would plan to use a full one-third of the Shuttle capabilities.
So I would say the role is getting stronger,
and their commitment to the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch system out there which will give us polar orbit launch capability-we now can only launch from the Kennedy Space Center, and basically achieve inclinations around 28-1/2 degrees to about 57 degrees latitude. The launch facilities out on the west coast will now give us polar orbiting capability which the DOD is working on that facility development.
Now, in the system deployment phase, we are in the process of implementing our major elements of the system, and at the Kennedy Space Center we have been building Pad B, the Launch Pad B. Up until this last launch we had been launching off of Pad A, and this 51-L mission was our first launch off of Pad B. We had also been putting in place our second TDRS, which is our Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. That was a major cargo element on this flight, and the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System is intended to allow us to communicate almost continuously with satellites from the Shuttle to the ground as opposed to using a lot of ground stations and so forth that we have been using up until this time.
We have also been planning to fly, and we have not flown it yet, a filament-wound case, which is a graphite/epoxy case to replace the steel cases on the
solid rocket boosters. And if I could take a second, I will show you what these are.
These are the solid rocket boosters. These are steel cases here, and we have had a program underway in development to replace the steel cases with a graphite/epoxy case called filament wound case. The objective of doing that is to achieve more payload performance. We can get about 5,000 pounds more payload into orbit by going to a composite structure versus steel, and you will hear more about that later on.
The Vandenberg launch site I mentioned to you earlier, the improved engine life, or CENTAUR, the improved engine life is on the Shuttle main engine. We have a concern in the [9] program about lifetime associated with the Shuttle main engines, and we have been putting a lot of effort into trying to get ourselves into a position for improved lifetime. We are developing CENTAUR G prime which is an upper stage that fits into the Shuttle bay, and it was planned or is planned to be launched in-the first launch attempt was planned in the May timeframe of this year, to launch two planetary missions.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-9 & 10]
MR. MOORE: We are also planning this year to launch the third Tracking and Data Relay Satellite,
again to give us the global coverage I talked about. Space Telescope is planned to be launched this year, a scientific payload. We are building the mobile launch platform, MLP-3, and the mobile platform is basically what our Shuttle System here rolls out to the launch pad on. You have seen the large crawler with the big system that the Shuttle is anchored on at the launch pad. That is called a mobile launch platform. We now have two of those in operation at the Kennedy Space Center, and we have been in the process of developing a third one at the Kennedy Space Center for operation sometime later this year.
CENTAUR G prime is another upper stage which is a derivative of the G prime system, and it has a little lower performance capability, and it is being principally developed not only for NASA missions but also for the Department of Defense missions. I should point out that CENTAUR development program is a joint responsibility of NASA and the Department of Defense, the Air Force in particular.
CSOC, the last one, is a Consolidated Space Operations Center which we are in the process of planning with the Department of Defense. It is the responsibility of the Department of Defense to develop this capability, and it would take over and develop and
do some of the operations of the Shuttle from this particular capability in CSOC, and it is in the Colorado area, and it is planned to be operational in the early 1990s. So DOD would help us in the operations.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Would you mind giving us a little more information about Pad B and Pad A? You said Pad B was the first time you had used that?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: And were the differences between-I assume there are differences between Pad A and Pad B?
Can the Commission-will the Commission be given some information about the differences?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. Pad A has been our primary launch platform in the Shuttle program up until this flight, this flight being the 25th flight of the Space Shuttle. Pad B is adjacent to Pad A by some few miles, and it is in design approximately identical to Pad A, and this launch, as I said, was the first launch attempt from Pad B.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: All before were from Pad A?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
Mr. Sieck, who will speak on the launch and landing operations at the Kennedy Space Center, can give you some additional information about Pad B this
afternoon when he talks, and we will be happy to provide the Commission any additional data that you so desire regarding the similarities and differences between Pad A and Pad B.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Thank you very much.
[10] MR. MOORE: The next several charts I won't spend a lot of time. I think they are mostly for your background, Mr. Chairman and Commission members.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-11]
MR. MOORE: These kind of plot as a function of time-and I apologize again for the line at the top. The chart did not come out very well, so you will have a hard time looking at the dates on this, but this chart basically was from the first launch of the Space Shuttle in April 1981 through the 1982 timeframe where we flew the STS-4.
The next chart-
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-12]
MR. MOORE: - carries us into the latter part of 1983, and it shows the launches of STS-5 through STS-9, which is Spacelab. And there are a number of different kinds of payloads on here. Most of these payload names are satellites, communications satellites or other attached experiments like, for example, on STS-7, Palapa B-1 is an Indonesian satellite; SPAS-01 is
a German payload structure and so forth, so to give you a little feel for those particular cargo elements.
DR. FEYNMAN: On the chart it says first flight of OV-99. Is that the Challenger?
MR. MOORE: Yes, OV-99 is Challenger. Let me just give you the numbers. OV-102 is Orbiter Columbia. That was the first orbiter built and flown. OV-99 is the Shuttle Orbiter Challenger. It is the second one delivered. OV-103 is Discovery, and it was the third one built and delivered. And OV-104 is Atlantis, and we just recently received that last year, as a matter of fact, and it has had its inaugural flight last year.
There is an orbiter called Enterprise which was a structural test orbiter, and it has now been turned over to the Air and Space Museum, and so we now have four flight-configured-had four flight-configured orbiters until the tragic mishap with Challenger.
Continuing on with the payload capabilities demonstration phase.
(Viewgraph ) [Ref. 2/6-13]
MR. MOORE: Through 1984 and early '85 we flew STS-41-B, 41-C, 41-D, 41-G and 51-A, and maybe I can spend a few seconds trying to give you a little bit of the sense of the nomenclature of the 41's: A's, B's and
C's. And it is 41, the number four stands for the fiscal year of the flight. From October to September is the fiscal year, so it is scheduled in that period of time. One stands for the launch area we are using. One is the Kennedy Center Launch Area, and if we were launching out of Vandenberg that would be a two, and the As, Bs, Cs and Ds are kind of the sequences that we have planned the missions, although as things have occurred we have had to move a mission over another mission, and so you don't get exactly an alphabetized listing of the flights.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-14]
MR. MOORE: Our next chart here through the 1985 timeframe, and the early part of-well, I guess the next chart we will show you through the 1985, we flew STS-51-C, which was a dedicated Department of Defense mission, and we flew 51-D, 51-B, 51-G, F, and 51-I through the latter part of the 1985 timeframe. And as a matter of fact, 51-I, for a point of reference, I believe, was launched on November 27, in that timeframe, of 1985.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-15]
MR. MOORE: In the next chart, the 61-A, 51-J was another DOD dedicated flight. 61-A was a Spacelab flight. 61-B was, the payloads were the communications
[11] satellites, and then the last flight before 51-L that we flew was STS-61-C, and we flew that in early January, and it also had communications satellites on it, among other cargo elements.
And then the flight that we are here to discuss, the 51-L mission, the Challenger incident, was planned, was launched on the 28th of January. That kind of gives you, Mr. Chairman, an early overview of some of the flight history and some of the very top-level structure of how NASA is organized, and what we have done in the Shuttle program to now.
If it pleases you, I would like to proceed with the 51-L mission summary and talk to you a little bit about the events of the day during the launch, where we are in the investigation work that we have done to date, what teams we have formed, and where we plan to go from here.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Mr. Moore, let's see if any Commission members have any questions.
DR. WALKER: I had one question. Why is 51-L after some of the sixties?
MR. MOORE: It was originally scheduled to be in an alphabetized sequence, but because of some of the cargo changes and so forth, we moved that nomenclature into the next fiscal year, and we just held the
nomenclature. Once you develop your documentation for a flight, it is awfully difficult several months before that time to go back and change all of your nomenclature. And so our principle is to hold the nomenclature, even though it may appear out of sequence in terms of the chronology of numbers and the alphabet.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: All 24 of these flights were without accident, or were there minor accidents, and if so, how many?
MR. MOORE: The 24 flights to date have been without any major accident at all. We have a category called anomalies during a flight, like we may lose a power element or we may have something look anomalous on a flight, but no major accident. We have had a launch that has shut down on the launch pad, which is called a launch abort. The system is designed so that if things are not right before the solid rocket boosters light off, it will automatically go into a shutdown sequence. We had an occurrence of that. We also had an occurrence of a main engine which was shut down during ascent prior to reaching orbit, but we did reach orbit successfully, and the system operated as it was supposed to operate.
There have been a number of electronic problems, like we have had some problems with computers on board not functioning properly, and we have had some
problems with fuel cells, but there have been no major accidents in the Space Shuttle program to date up until this last flight.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Did you find that the performance improved with each launch or remained about the same?
MR. MOORE: I think our performance in terms of the liftoff performance and in terms of the orbital performance, we knew more about the envelope we were operating under, and we have been pretty accurately staying in that. And so I would say the performance has not by design drastically improved. I think we have been able to characterize the performance more as a function of our launch experience as opposed to it improving as a function of time.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I assume that you have rather complete records of each one of these flights.
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir, we have. As you will hear during the day, Mr. Chairman, we do a complete, thorough documentation of each flight, getting ready to each flight, and as the [12] Commission so desires, we will be more than happy to provide you with all of the information you need in those areas.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: And do those reports show whether one flight seemed to be more successful than
another?
And I am directing my comment-did you find that the performance was improved with each flight or not? Were you more worried in later flights or about the same, based on experience?
MR. MOORE: I don't think that we have relaxed at all in the program, and I don't think we have been more worried about the performance. I think we have gotten probably more confidence as a function of our overall performance on these things, but some of the events that we talked about, like the engine shutdown on the launch pad, that certainly worried us about the main engines because you need them to get to orbit, and we put together extensive review teams to find out what we could do about the engines program, and we have done a lot of work on that, and you will hear some more about the engine activities.
But as a function of time, I think our performance has been better characterized in terms of understanding the Shuttle system from a total system point of view is the way I would describe it.
DR. WALKER: I have one other question.
When were the graphite/epoxy casings to be phased into the program?
MR. MOORE: They are scheduled to be flown on the initial Vandenberg launch site flight, which is now targeted for the middle of the summer. It is mid July at this point in time is the current plan. So we have not flown any elements of the filament wound case, the graphite/epoxy cases up until this point in time.
DR. WALKER: Once you use them, was the plan to abandon the steel casings?
MR. MOORE: No, it is not. We have a major question that the program is looking at right now, and we probably won't get any good data on that until later downstream, and our question, among others that is on the table about the graphite/epoxy cases today, is can we reuse them?
You know, we currently reuse the steel cases. The Shuttle returns, it has its engines on the back, the SRBs are returned. They have parachutes on them. We go back and retrieve the SRBs and go through a refurbishment cycle on them to reuse them. For the graphite/epoxy cases, we are doing some of our final testing at this point in time, and we are not sure whether or not we can reuse those filament-wound cases after we fly them and they come back and impact the ocean. We have not made a determination like that, so we are not planning to get out of the steel case SRB business at this point in time. We have a lot of
additional work to go on the filament-wound cases.
MR. HOTZ: Mr. Moore, have you made any design changes in the steel casings of the SRBs since the beginning of the program?
MR. MOORE: I think there have been some very minor design changes in the SRB, and I think Mr. Judson Lovingood from the Marshall Space Flight Center will talk about that as he comes up here this afternoon or later on this morning. He will give you a detailed rundown of the chronology of the SRBs, the external tank and the main engines.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: How many times can you reuse the booster?
[13] MR. MOORE: We have not set a real high use limit. We probably, I think-and Bill Lucas, maybe you can help me on this-20 times, Mr. Commissioner, is the current plan for the reuse of the steel cases on the SRBs.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: What is the largest number of uses?
MR. MOORE: I think the largest-and again, I am recalling from memory-is about three to four times. This particular flight, 51-L, as I recall, had maximum of two uses of any of the components, possibly three, if my memory serves me correctly.
MR. SUTTER: I have one short question. The flights are characterized, the first flights were test flights to check the Shuttle system, and then the second phase was capabilities demo phase.
In the first flights which were labeled flight tests, was there a documentation of what was trying to be accomplished, what instrumentation was required, and then after those flights, was there a documentation of what the flights proved?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. We have very, very extensive documentation on all those flights, what we learned from those flights and what were changed as we left from the orbital flight test phase into the other phases of the program. We maintain very, very extensive records of all the flights.
MR. SUTTER: And at the conclusion of those flights were the objectives pretty well achieved?
MR. MOORE: In general, I would say the objectives of those flights were met. Each flight data was analyzed in great detail and fed back in to the program designers to look at what they actually achieved versus what they expected. And again, we will be able-we will be happy to make available to the Commission any data that the Commission so desires relative to any of the flights up until now.
Now, if I might, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move into the 51-L mission which is the mission we are talking about, Challenger's tragic mission, and I would like to start out by giving you a very brief look at what the cargo elements were on board. (Viewgraph) [Ref. 2/6-16]
MR. MOORE: I have talked about these, but let me talk to you again quickly. The largest payload component on board, and I should point out that the shuttle cargo bay, you are going to hear more about the dimensional characteristics and performance characteristics of the shuttle, but I should point out that the shuttle cargo bay is 15 feet in diameter and 60 feet long, to give you some feel of the dimensionality of the cargo bay, and we have flown a maximum of eight people in the shuttle up until this point in time.
On this flight, we had the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. This was to be the second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite deployed. There is one on orbit now, and it was supported by an Inertial Upper Stage developed by the Air Force and used by NASA for the deployment of the satellite from low earth orbit where the shuttle takes you, up to the geosynchronous orbit where the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite has a requirement.
We also had on board a payload called Spartan-Halley. This was a structural element that actually sat across the shuttle bay attached to the cargo bay and supported several science instruments to do some observations of Comet Halley. And then we had in the crew compartment or the middeck area, we
[14] had the experiments associated with the Teacher-in-Space Program.
We had an experiment called CHAMP, Comet Halley Active Monitoring Program, a fluid dynamics experiment, some student experiments looking at different kinds of things from high school students, The Radiation Monitoring Experiment, and a Phase Partitioning Experiment.
Most of those sat in the middeck area of the orbiter, and you will hear some more about that particular area, and where the lockers are and so forth for putting those kinds of experiments. They are fairly small experiments.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-17]
MR. MOORE: The next chart shows the layout of the major elements of the cargo, and it showed the TDRS-B/IUS sitting in the cargo bay, the Spartan-Halley on the impasse, the support structure. It also shows on there an acronym which I talked about before called the RMS, which is the Remote Manipulator System. That is the arm on board.
The arm was planned to be used on this flight to pick the Spartan system up, deploy it overboard, leave it in orbit for a couple of days, rendezvous back with it, pick it up, and store it back into the cargo
bay and return back to the earth.
GENERAL KUTYNA: Jess, may I ask, how many remote manipulator arms do you have? Is that the only one?
MR. MOORE: No, we have another arm, and also we have a program with the Canadians for possibly refurbishing another one.
DR. WALKER: Could you say a word about the IUS?
MR. MOORE: Yes. The IUS is a two-stage solid inertial upper stage. It is solid rockets, and the TDRS in this case, I believe, is 5,000 or 6,000 pounds, and its purpose was basically to boost it from low earth orbit, which was about 140 or 50 nautical miles up to its position in geostationary orbit, which is about 22,000 miles. So it provides the propulsion to basically boost the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite up to its final orbital destination in geosynchronous orbit.
It is a two-stage rocket system. The first stage burns, and then after it burns it separates, and then it burns a second stage, and at the end of the second stage burn the IUS second stage separates from the TDRS and then the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite provides its own navigation and its own orbital adjustments with its own propulsion system on board.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-18]
MR. MOORE: The next chart gives you a quick summary of the STS 51-L mission profile. This shows the liftoff. In the case of 51-L the liftoff occurred at 11:38 a.m. on the 28th. We go through what we call a High Q phase or a high dynamic pressure phase for the flight, and then we go through planned SRB staging, and that SRB staging is about two minutes, and this 51-L mission was planned for 128 seconds, and at that point in time we had planned to stage off the SRBs, continue with the tank on the orbiter.
Remember, the tank provides the fuel to the shuttle main engines until we achieve our orbital destination some 150 or so miles into space. The tank stays with the orbiter or is planned to stay with the orbiter on this flight for about 523 seconds, after which time it has essentially depleted itself of its fuel. We shut the engines down, and some ten to eighteen seconds later we then separate the external tank from the orbiter, and then we plan to go about our orbital profile.
[15] That plans to give you some kind of feel for the profile. We had a six-plus day mission plan, and we had planned to land at the Kennedy Space Center on six plus a few hours, six days plus a few hours, so the
day-by-day mission profile is given to you in your upper righthand portion of this vu-graph.
DR. RIDE: You might say something about the Max Q phase of the flight.
MR. MOORE: The Max Q is the maximum dynamic phase. We see that we planned in the launch profile. We go through a throttling down of the main engines during that period of time, and we are concerned about loads on the orbiter, and so we throttle our main engines down, and this particular flight had a nominal engine profile of flying at like 104 percent of rated power, where we have flown a large, large part of our flights to this date.
We throttle down during that period of time to some lower percentage, and then after we have gone through that phase of the flight, we will begin to throttle back up again and hold that throttle setting until we get to geosynchronous orbit.
We are trying to minimize the loads on the total shuttle system during the time it is seeing its maximum dynamic pressure.
DR. FEYNMAN: Was there any special extra heavy load on this particular flight higher than other flights?
MR. MOORE: We do not think so, sir. In terms
of the prelaunch calculations, we get wind data prior to launch. We look at day of launch winds even an hour or so right before launch and try to get wind profiles and any kind of loads like that, and we have load indicators on the orbiter that are sensitive to different kinds of winds, whether you are getting a tailwind or a sidewind, and all of our calculations during that day had indicated that our loads condition was okay.
MR. HOTZ: Is there any change in the thrust of the solid rocket boosters when you are throttling back the main engines?
MR. MOORE: No, sir. The way the liftoff works is the shuttle main engines come on at approximately six seconds prior to what we call liftoff. We bring those engines up to their near nominal thrust level. We check those engines to make sure we have full redundancy on all the engines.
We have redundant systems on the engines, and once that check is made, a signal is sent to the solids to ignite the solids, and that happens about, as I said, about six to seven seconds after you have ignited the main engines.
Once the solids are ignited, then it lifts off the launchpad, and the solids are designed to provide stable thrusting during that period of time until they
are separated, in this case 128 seconds after liftoff.
MR. HOTZ: They don't change during the entire burn?
MR. MOORE: They are not planned to be changed during the entire burn. Now, we do have a thrust cone on the back of each of the solids, and there is a little gimbaling motion in case we do get a little bit of loading effect.
We can change the gimbal on there to change the orientation of the thrust, but the planned thrust of the solids is to have a matched pair of solids, a balanced thrust during the entire flight.
MR. HOTZ: Thank you.
[16] MR. ACHESON: Mr. Moore, at some point in the presentation today will we be briefed the test procedures, the preflight test procedures of all of the elements?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
MR. ACHESON: And the contractor test procedures?
MR. MOORE: Sir, our briefing under the shuttle systems, when we begin to talk about l orbiter, we begin to talk about all of the propulsive elements of the shuttle system.
We will talk about the test procedures, the
NASA people involved, the NASA structure involved, the contractors involved, and then we will talk about our design approach, our certification approach, our testing approach.
We will also talk about the entire process that we use to get ready for a shuttle launch, and how that is tiered up from flight hardware and flight software point of view until it comes up to my level at NASA Headquarters. We will give you very, very much detail on that during the course of the day.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-19]
MR. MOORE: The next chart shows some specific mission data on STS 51-L, launch data on 51-L, January 28th, 1986. The orbiter is OV-99 Challenger. And we had a planned liftoff time of 9:38. Now, we had a three-hour launch window, and for a lot of our flights we don't have the luxury of a very long time to launch in terms of meeting payload requirements.
Some launch windows are like 50 minutes, and others are like an hour and a half or two hours. This launch we had three hours to launch. The throttle setting on the main engines were 104 percent of rated power level, and we have flown many times at 104 percent, and the abort thrust setting in case we had a problem going uphill was 104 percent as well. We keep
the same engine thrust. The inclination of the orbit we had planned was 28.45 degrees, and we had planned to achieve an orbital altitude of 153 and a half nautical miles circular.
DR. FEYNMAN: What is the inclination? What angle is that?
MR. MOORE: It is basically the inclination of the orbit relative to the latitude of where we are launching out of Kennedy, and it is the inclination relative to the-say, polar inclination. You are at 90 degrees. You are basically going around the earth, over the poles of the earth, and you can allow the earth to spin.
You have got an inclined orbit here like the 28 and a half degrees, and so you are not getting full coverage of the earth, so if you are plus or minus 28 and a half degrees latitude coverage in effect and your orbit is like a sine wave which walks across a still map if you were to plot continuous maps of the orbit.
One of the considerations among others that we have to do in this program is to look at our landing sites, not only for end-of-mission landing sites, which is a concern, but also abort once around, which is a condition where something could happen during the powered flight phase of the profile and not allow us to achieve
a full stable orbit.
In that case, we could go once around the earth and come back. Edwards was a planned landing if we had an abort of that nature. We look at weather alternates as well.
The Kennedy Space Center has inclement weather on a fairly high frequency-witness the last launch prior to 51-L-in terms of clouds or in terms of rain, and we have very stringent rules about what landing requirements are on the system, and so we have a weather alternate.
[17] We also have a trans-Atlantic abort capability in the event we lose an engine during a certain phase of the flight.
We have runways and people and systems on standby in places in Africa and also places in Spain where the shuttle could land if such a problem like that occurred, and in this case for Mission 51-L we had runway availability in Dakar, Senegal, and also in Casablanca, Morocco.
Both of those runways were considered viable trans-Atlantic landing sites in the event we had a problem, and we look at that on a real time basis during the preparations for launch and during the actual launch count.
We also have what we call an RTLS. Let me say
before I mention this there is a whole number of abort kinds of capabilities in the system. We are not planning to go into great detail today on that, but we will be happy to provide you with additional data on kind of the abort modes in the shuttle program.
We also have one other capability called RTLS. That stands for Return to Launch Site, and that is in the event again during a certain phase of the projectory if we have a problem, we can return back to the Kennedy Space Center. After that particular problem has been noticed, and after we have separated the solids, you can come back to the Kennedy Space Center and land there.
So, a constraint for launch is that we have good weather at the shuttle landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center for some 30 to 40 minutes after a launch to make sure that we have a capability if that event occurred to land at the Kennedy Space Center.
DR. RIDE: It might be helpful to go into a little bit more of the things that you might do an RTLS for or the constraints on an RTLS.
MR. MOORE: Arnie is planning to cover that, Sally, during his discussions today about what an RTLS and what other abort modes might be, but that is a good point. We will do that.
Flight duration, as I mentioned, was six days.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-20]
MR. MOORE: Now, I would like to tell you a little bit about launch date chronology leading up to our launch on the 28th, and this will give you a feel, a very preliminary feel, about the meetings that we have in terms of getting ready for a launch and who participates in that, and I am sure we will want to spend some more time on that as time goes on.
The first day we met at the Kennedy Space Center was on January 25th. Prior to that time there had been a number of meetings that a lot of the project people and even myself had participated in, talking about are we ready to launch Challenger on the 25th, at that point in time, or the 26th, I guess, was when that was scheduled, and we all agreed, so we all met at the Kennedy Space Center on the 25th of January, anticipating a launch on Sunday, and that was the 26th.
We have what we call an L-1 Day Review. Participants include myself, my senior managers, and my NASA Center people, directors, the contractor senior people, where we sit around the table and review the status of the system prior to launching. That meeting occurred at 11:00 a.m., and the major outcome of that
meeting was that we had a weather problem, potential weather problem, on Sunday.
We decided at that point in time to hold a meeting Saturday afternoon or late Saturday evening, I should say, 9:30.
[18] We met again with essentially the same type of people there, although not as large, and at that time we got our weather reports, and we decided the weather for the next day was no go. We had no optimism for the weatherman that said the rain was going to stop, or we would have an attempt to get off, and it takes an effort to get the team up, and so we decided to bet on the weatherman's forecast, and decided not to launch that day.
Well, it turns out the early part of Sunday morning for about an hour was a reasonable time. The frontal system had not reached Florida yet, and so we didn't win that call in terms of the weather, but it was a no go on Saturday night.
DR. FEYNMAN: Would you explain why we are so sensitive to the weather?
MR. MOORE: Yes, there are several reasons. I mentioned the return to the landing site. We need to have visibility if we get into a situation where we need to return to the landing site after launch, and the
pilots and the commanders need to be able to see the runway and so forth. So you need a ceiling limitation on it.
We also need to maintain specifications on wind velocity so we don't exceed crosswinds. Landing on a runway and getting too high of a crosswind may cause us to deviate off of the runway and so forth, so we have a crosswind limit. During assent, assuming a nominal flight, a chief concern is damage to tiles due to rain. We have had experiences in seeing what the effects of a brief shower can do in terms of the tiles. The tiles are thermal insulation blocks, very thick. A lot of them are very thick on the bottom of the orbiter. But if you have a raindrop and you are going at a very high velocity, it tends to erode the tiles, pock the tiles, and that causes us a grave concern regarding the thermal protection.
In addition to that, you are worried about the turnaround time of the orbiters as well, because with the kind of tile damage that one could get in rain, you have an awful lot of work to do to go back and replace tiles back on the system. So there are a number of concerns that weather enters into, and it is a major factor in our assessment of whether or not we are ready
to launch.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Mr. Moore, in that connection, I notice a press report that one of the contractors said that they gave a warning of some sort about the cold weather. Could you deal with that, please?
MR. MOORE: Yes. I am going to continue on with this chart, which will deal with that cold weather question in a fair amount of detail, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Fine.
MR. MOORE: Since we decided not to attempt the launch on the 26th, we called a meeting on the 26th itself at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon, again an MMT meeting or Mission Management Team meeting, to sit down and see what the weather situation was projected to be, plus the status of our launch systems, including the launch pad and the shuttle system.
We decided after reviewing everything that launch was a confirmed go for Monday, the 27th, and that we confirmed that we were ready to attempt to launch on 9:37 a.m. on Monday, January 27th. Well, on Monday, January 27th, we did in fact get ready for the launch, and that involves making sure all of the systems have been checked out, the launch system is up, and making sure you have fueled up the external tank, which we do
[19] about seven or eight hours before the launch, and making sure you then bring the crew on board and make sure all the systems are ready for launch.
And so we started that late in the evening, started the final countdown and began a launch attempt for Monday morning at 9:30. We had a couple of initial delays during that attempt. There are a couple of microswitches on the orbiter that we need to receive closed indications of before we close out our requirement, and we were only getting one indication of a microswitch on there was closed, and so we went back and did a pressure check in the cabin to make sure that the seal was proper on the cabin door and you didn't have any leaks, and we convinced ourselves that that was okay.
Then we have a piece of GSE or Ground Support Equipment which attaches to the orbiter door to allow the technicians to close the door, and it is fastened on by some bolts and a nut plate that is attached to the orbiter Challenger's door, and it is fastened on in three places. One of the nut plates that is fastened onto the orbiter came loose, and we could not get the bolt off in a very timely manner, and so we sent some technicians out to actually take a hacksaw and pull this piece of Ground Support
Equipment off.
That was successfully done to our satisfaction, but by the time we finished that, we had high crosswinds, and I mentioned crosswinds earlier on January 28th or 27th, and the high crosswinds, we had wind gusts up to 30 knots, and our limit is like 15 knots.
We have a limitation, a flight rule in the program that we did not launch because of the Return to Landing Site condition if crosswinds are too high. So the winds kept getting stronger that day, and after watching the wind patterns for some hour to an hour and a half, we decided to scrub that particular launch attempt for that day.
Then we called a Mission Management Team Meeting again, which is made up of the senior NASA managers, shuttle managers, Center directors in some cases, and contractor support people in other cases, at 2:00 in the afternoon on the 27th, and discussed should we attempt to launch on the 28th.
We had a fairly lengthy meeting, with the only concern being expressed that the weatherman had predicted the temperatures were going to be fairly cold that evening, down into the mid-20s. It was kind of the prediction.
And we talked about temperature concerns, and the main concern that came out of our meeting as far as temperature was, are the water systems or the support systems on the launch pad, the water pipes, eyewashes where technicians have water running to wash their eyes in the event they get contaminated on the launchpad and so forth, were these pipes going to freeze, and that was the major concern that the system had at that point in time.
Now the launch team guys were given the instructions to proceed with the launch for 9:38 in the morning, assuming there were no problems with tanking and getting the system working and ready, and because we had one waterpipe that broke on the launchpad, and I
think Bob Sieck can talk a little bit more about this than I can from Kennedy, we were an hour down in our launch attempt. So instead of 9:38 the earliest we could have launched was like 10:38, because our count was delayed about an hour. We had one pipe that burst.
[20] The other problem that we had and were concerned about all during this discussion was ice. We were concerned about ice buildup, and I think this is where you read the article, Mr. Chairman, about the ice concern. We were concerned about ice on the launch tower and that particular ice doing some damage to the orbiter surfaces and the orbiter tiles because of how fragile those tiles are from impacts and so forth.
There were technical meetings held to assess the ice situation. A major technical meeting was held involving a number of people that was chaired by Arnie Aldrich here of JSC. Their assessment came back that the system is okay, we should hold the launch for probably one more hour to allow a last-minute ice team to go out at about 20 minutes before launch and to validate the ice concerns, to go back and do another doublecheck of the ice, and that was done.
They came back and reported that everything was okay, and that we ought to go for launch, and a launch window then opened up at 11:38, I believe was the
time, on Tuesday morning.
DR. FEYNMAN: On the 27th you made a launch attempt?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
DR. FEYNMAN: That means you put fuel into the tanks?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
DR. FEYNMAN: Does it stay in the tanks all this time, or do you take it out?
MR. MOORE: No, sir. Immediately after we, so-called in our jargon, scrub, we start safing the vehicle. The crew stays on board and does a number of functions to get the vehicle in a safe condition to make sure all propellants and all electrical systems are properly safed. Other people go to the launchpad to start safing the launchpad, and then we allow the hazard and safety teams to go out and make sure it is all acceptable for people to come out and do the deservicing on the tank, and the fuel is drained out of the tank, and it will not be replenished again until we get ready to launch again, which is again some seven or so hours before the actual liftoff time.
DR. FEYNMAN: And all this time even when the tank is empty, the tank is standing there, and the rest of the equipment, in the weather?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
DR. FEYNMAN: How early was it put out in the weather?
MR. MOORE: Sir, I am going to have to ask Bob Sieck. This tank and the entire stack on Challenger was moved out, I believe
MR. SIECK: December 21st.
MR. MOORE: It was moved out to the launch pad on December 21st, sir.
DR. WHEELON: At your meeting where you were concerned about the weather and the temperature, did you discuss and consider the impact that that weather might have, and the temperatures in particular, on the vehicle?
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir, that was discussed at the meeting, and I think the technical team meeting that Arnie chaired-Arnie can probably comment on the specifics of that, because he came back to me after the meeting was held on the temperature discussion and reported that everybody was okay from a temperature standpoint.
And I will ask Arnold Aldrich when he comes up to talk about that in a fair amount of detail, since Arnie chaired the meeting from all the parties involved in that particular session.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I thought that the report I
[21] read about temperature referred not to the outside of the space ship but to the booster rocket. The claim was, according to the newspaper, that there was concern that the cold temperature might have affected the booster rocket inside not outside.
MR. MOORE: That may be. The one paper or article I remember seeing, Mr. Chairman, was the article on the effects on the orbiter and so forth, and I will ask the people here who are in charge of the solid rocket booster to talk about any discussions that went on relative to that, and feel free to ask those questions to the members who have the responsibility for the various program elements as they discuss their systems.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: What I refer to is not a rumor or just gossip. It was a statement by one of the contractors that was a quote that was issued.
MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.
DR. WHEELON: But, Jess, just to come back and be clear, at your meeting was the potential impact of low temperatures on the SRBs discussed with you? Was it dismissed or not discussed?
MR. MOORE: At the meeting that I had with Mr. Aldrich, who had come back after the review from his technical team meeting, it was not discussed at my
meeting. It was discussed at the meeting we had, the Mission Management Team meeting at 2:00 on the 27th of January. Is that right, Arnie? It was discussed by all of the people representing all of the systems. It was discussed on the 27th of January. Again, I will ask Arnie to give a little bit more details of that, since he was involved in that particular meeting on the orbiter.
DR. WHEELON: But it was not presented to you as a matter of potential concern?
MR. MOORE: It was not presented to me as a matter of concern. That is correct.
DR. WALKER: Mr. Moore, will you at some point tell us how many temperature sensors you had in the vehicle and where they were?
MR. MOORE: I will have to have the system design people do it, and let me ask the project element management down here if they would please talk about that to the extent they can.
Jud, can you do that from the Marshall side, and Arnie from the orbiter side?
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-21]
MR. MOORE: Okay, the next chart shows the initial assessment after the launch, after the Challenger lifted off at 11:38 on January 28th. I
mentioned the fact that the launch had been delayed for a couple of hours. The launch processing equipment problems I talked about, the ice inspection of launch complex and ice removal. I did not have any concerns about the temperature expressed other than the concern on the complex, launch complex.
The actual flight, the ascent appeared normal based upon our initial quick looks for the first 73 seconds, and it went through its main program roll maneuver where the shuttle rolls from its initial launch configuration through its maximum dynamic pressure I talked about, and then the throttle down and throttle back up of the shuttle main engines.
The vehicle again appeared to be performing nominally at our 104 percent thrust at approximately 1,200 miles an hour at approximately 47,600 feet, when all our telemetry stopped, and at that point in time we observed the breakup from the ground. All of our controllers that we heard over the loop and all of the net had indicated that the flight was nominal were all of the calls that I had heard during the morning of the launch.
[22] (Viewgraph.)[Ref. 2/6-22]
MR. MOORE: What we initially put in place, the immediate actions that we took, we impounded
immediately all data and information from this flight at all sites. We have a contingency plan in NASA, and each center has a contingency plan on STS contingency events of this nature, and immediately I then was requested by Dr. Graham to form a Mishap Investigation Board.
I immediately put that into effect, and I had members, the director of the Kennedy Space Center, the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Arnold Aldrich, the National STS Program manager at Johnson, and Walt Williams, a former NASA employee, a special assistant to the NASA administrator, as immediate members, and additionally I added in the next couple of days Bob Crippen of the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center, and I also added Joe Curran, who is director of the Space and Light Sciences from the Johnson Space Center. As ex officio members on my group,
I added John O'Brien, chief counsel at NASA, and Milt Silviera, who is the chief engineer at NASA. Jim Harrington was my director of STS integration. He was the executive secretary. And shortly after this formation, we immediately put into effect a number of teams to start action.
I have listed those teams on this chart, and I will quickly just run through them. I think you can read them, and they are probably self-explanatory, but
some of them, I think, probably are worthy of some mention.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-23]
MR. MOORE: The Flight Data Trajectory and Com Team was immediately formed, a team to do the analysis of the launchpad facility at beach area, and I should point out, Mr. Chairman and Commission members, that we have held all the data, impounded all the data, kept the configurations the same as it was the day of the incident, and we will be working with your Commission as well as our own activities before releasing any of those types of information.
DR. WHEELON: Just before you get too far away from it, could we go back to the trajectory circumstances surrounding the accident? You have indicated in the handout that you were at 47,600 feet, going approximately 1,200 miles per hour. You have just gone through maximum dynamic pressure. To what level did you throttle down during that period?
MR. MOORE: I will have to recall my memory, but we do have a throttle profile. Let me look at my information. We throttle down initially from 104 percent, and I will be happy to give you a copy of this throttle profile. We throttled down from 104 percent at
20 seconds to 94 percent, and that is held until 36 seconds, and then at 39 seconds, between 36 and 39 seconds we throttle down to 65 percent and hold that from 39 seconds until 52 seconds, and then from 52 seconds to 57 seconds we throttle up to 104 percent.
DR. WHEELON: Was that the usual throttle-up, throttle-down profile?
MR. MOORE: It varies depending upon the loads and so forth that we have got in the system, you know, the cargo elements and the kind of profile that we have to fly to achieve it, but we always generally go through a throttle bucket of that general type, and we will be happy to get you the specific.
DR. WHEELON: But to your knowledge there was nothing that distinguished this profile from those flown previously except for the payload compensation?
[24] MR. MOORE: No, sir, to my knowledge there was nothing unique or that distinguished this, and let me say that we are doing-right now a lot of work is going on in looking at the detailed trajectory calculations. It takes-the Marshall Space Flight Center gets data. The Cape gets data. Johnson is the lead in this thing, and they have got all of that flight data, and we have a major team going and looking at synching up all of the trajectory data during the
various mission phases and mission events that went on.
DR. WHEELON: What was the Mach number at this time?
MR. MOORE: About 1.8, I believe, if my memory serves me correct.
MR. SUTTER: Depending upon the load and everything, isn't there a variation in the loads as you go through this, rather dynamic?
MR. MOORE: There is a variation in the load, and we use a parameter called Q alpha, which is dynamic pressure versus an angle of attack to look at the load calculations, and also have instrumentation that we look at, and look at various load points on the wings and the various surfaces of the orbiter, and do that calculation based upon a given kind of wind profile.
We put balloons up starting at like 36 hours before launch to 24, down to about an hour or so before launch to get wind profile data. That is fed back into our computer programs to give us load indications, to see if we have got any exceedences on any parts of the orbiter.
MR. SUTTER: So during this flight then the load versus time and compared to other flights is something that will be known?
MR. MOORE: That is correct. Yes, sir. We will know that very,
very precisely, and as to our knowledge on the day of launch, we did not have any loading sequences on any of the indications and trajectory analyses we had.
DR. WALKER: Is the throttle controlled by the crew?
MR. MOORE: The throttle is automatic.
DR. WALKER: Thank you.
DR. RIDE: The throttle can be controlled by the crew, but on a nominal ascent it is not.
MR. MOORE: Sally knows very well. Excuse me. A nominal throttle is automatic by the general purpose computer system on board which basically flies the flight profile.
There are a number of other teams we put in place, photography teams, data analysis, pedigree teams looking at the hardware, looking at the processing of this hardware. The quality records, the manufacturing records, and so forth on that are all being put in place.
Looking at security, in terms of anything that would be anomalous as far as security, range safety, public affairs. We have got a team on the flight crew with Bob Overmeyer chairing that from JSC. Marshall has a team on the main propulsion system, and the flight vehicle impoundment has also been formed.
We formed some additional teams on salvage and recovery, and our philosophy in the recovery of all the debris or wreckage from this tragic event has been to identify as best we could the areas and to delicately move when recovering, the parts that we possibly can without doing any additional damage.
We have, as you will see on the next chart, the next slides, a lot of support from a lot of different people in this whole area.
The other thing I want to mention to you is that we are forming a devil's advocate team, and that devil's advocate team is a TBD over there, which means To Be Determined. I have not [24] named the members of that team, and that will be a team which will set off and support my activities and think up scenarios that may have occurred on this mission that will not be intimately involved into the detailed scenario analysis that we are doing with our own teams in place here. There will be a team set off to the side and hopefully do some independent thinking to make sure we are not letting anything fall through the cracks.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-24]
MR. MOORE: The status as of today, we have reviewed some data, and our analysis does continue. As I said earlier, we are putting a very, very detailed time line of all events together. The initial time lines that we saw right after the occurrence were kind of first order time lines, and we are going back and developing and constructing the high-speed data to look at it.
We are enhancing all of our photography that we can, and we are concentrating a lot of that photography on the righthand solid rocket booster. As you probably have seen, we have released some photos which-I have three of them in here-which would indicate a plume in the righthand solid rocket booster.
The salvage and recovery operations is proceeding. I would like to just say, Mr. Chairman, that we have had extensive cooperation from all branches of the military, and we very much appreciate that, and also extensive cooperation from the National Transportation Safety Board, who have just been invaluable to us in helping us and assisting us in this grave incident that we are going through.
The wreckage analysis and reassembly is proceeding well, and we have essentially from a
procedural standpoint turned that over to the National Transportation Safety Board. They are working with us in laying out areas where we are trying to preserve as much of a wreckage as we can, and laying it out in some manner that we hope will give us some clues in terms of what kind of anomalies we did experience on this flight.
The next three charts show the three photos that we released, and again I apologize. We are working on getting each member of the Commission quality photos to replace the photos that did not turn out. In the interest of time I was not able to put any better photos.
You can see them on the monitor here. This photo was taken at about-and you are looking at the righthand solid rocket booster here, and it may be difficult to see on your screen, but the external tank outline is here. The solid rocket booster is shown here.
These are some reflections, we believe. We also think this is a reflection, but again these are very, very preliminary, and we are not prepared to conclude exactly what all of these are. These appear to be the engine plumes, and you can see the tail of the orbiter here at this point in time, and that photograph was observed at 58.3 seconds. [Ref. 2/6-25]
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-26]
MR. MOORE: The next chart will show what appears to be a plume in this area, in the area of the righthand solid coming out at a time of 59.8 seconds.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-27]
MR. MOORE: And the final chart shows the plume has basically grown and merged into the tail from the engines and the other solid, and it basically looks like it has moved quite a bit here, and that occurred at 73 seconds, just milliseconds from the tragic event.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Would you mind showing us on the model where that plume is?
[25] MR. MOORE: Let me make one comment. I can't show you exactly where it is, because we don't know exactly. I can show you the vicinity of where it is, is what I will attempt to do.
This is the righthand solid rocket booster, and it appears that the plume is in this area in here. Somewhere in this area is where it would appear, and until we complete our detailed photographic enhancements with the best laboratories that we can get to support us through the overlays and make sure the trajectory siting and the angles of the cameras are all pinned down, it is going to be very difficult to pin it down any closer than to just say that it appears in this area right in here.
MR. HOTZ: Which segment of the solid rocket would that be?
MR. MOORE: We do not know. This is an aft segment here, and there is an aft center segment right in here that is joined together in this area. This is the structural attach point here to the external tank, and we don't know whether it is the aft center segment. We don't know whether it is the aft segment. We don't know for sure it is the SRB.
I will caution you, it appears in that area, but we are not ruling out anything at this point. I just can't say that other than there appears to be a plume in that area. That is basically all the data that we have at this point in time until we do our high-speed photography enhancement and begin to try to pin that down some more.
DR. WALKER: Could you show us where the seams are in the solid rocket booster, approximately?
MR. MOORE: I can attempt to do that. You are going to see that laid out in quite a bit of detail when the Marshall people talk about the solid rocket booster and so forth.
DR. WALKER: I can wait until then.
MR. MOORE: Would you, please? Thank you.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-28]
MR. MOORE: Now, my final chart, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission, is to tell you that the activities we initiated on that tragic Tuesday at NASA are continuing. We are doing everything we possibly can to analyze the data from this occurrence and put in place a mechanism to fully assess and evaluate and determine the problems associated with this particular mission.
Yesterday I was designated by Dr. Graham to be the chairman of the 51-L Design Data and Design Analysis Task Force. We are continuing to analyze the facts and circumstances and to identify any design issues that we can surrounding this incident, and we are authorized to use any technical and scientific resources within NASA and any available external resources that we possibly can that we feel the need to call upon to solve this problem, and we would be happy to support you and the members of this Commission in any way you deem fit, and we are planning to proceed forthright in our analysis and detailed evaluation of this tragic event. And that is all the charts that I have prepared this morning, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Thank you very much, Mr. Moore, for a very good briefing. We appreciate it.
MR. MOORE: With your permission, I will
introduce Arnold Aldrich from the Johnson Space Center, and he will go through a process of covering the other elements that I cited earlier.
[26] CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I would like to suggest that we take a five-minute recess, if you don't mind, before we get started.
(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Ladies and gentlemen, we will come to order, please.
Would you please swear Mr, Aldrich in?
Mr. Aldrich, proceed.
[Please note that some of the titles to the references listed below
do not appear in the original text. Titles are included to identify
and clarify the linked references- Chris Gamble, html editor]
[27] [Ref.
2/6-1] AGENDA [of Jesse Moore's
testimony].
[28] [Ref. 2/6-2] ORGANIZATION CHART [NASA chart; From Administrator to field center levels].
[29] [Ref. 2/6-3] OFFICE OF SPACE FLIGHT CHART [NASA; Organization chart]. [Ref. 2/6-4] STS MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES CHART [NASA; Organization chart].
[30] [Ref. 2/6-5] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM MANAGEMENT RELATIONSHIPS [Management responsibilities]. [Ref. 2/6-6] PLANNED EVOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL STS PROGRAM [December 1985; Covering period from 1981 to 1986; Orbital Fligh Test Phase; Payload Capabilities Demo Phase; Payload Operational Phase; System Deployment Phase- see following charts.]
[31] [Ref. 2/6-7] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM ORBITAL FLIGHT TEST PHASE [Flights STS-1 through STS-4]. [Ref. 2/6-8] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD CAPABILITIES DEMO PHASE [Flights STS-5 through STS-9].
[32] [Ref. 2/6-9 & 10] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD OPERATIONAL PHASE [Flights STS 51-C through STS 51-I].
[33] [Ref. 2/6-11] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM ORBITAL FLIGHT TEST PHASE [Flights STS-1 through STS-4- identical chart as Ref. 2/6-7]. [Ref. 2/6-12] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD CAPABILITIES DEMO PHASE [Flights STS-5 through STS-9; chart identical to Ref. 2/6-8].
[34] [Ref. 2/6-13] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD CAPABILITIES DEMO PHASE [For the year 1984; Flights STS 41-B through STS 51-A]. [Ref. 2/6-14] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD OPERATIONAL PHASE [For the year 1985; Flights STS 51-C through 51-I].
[35] [Ref. 2/6-15] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM PAYLOAD OPERATIONAL PHASE [End of 1985, early 1986; Flights STS 51-J through STS 61-C].
[36] [Ref. 2/6-16] STS 51-L CARGO ELEMENTS.
[37] [Ref. 2/6-17] NATIONAL STS PROGRAM STS 51-L CARGO CONFIGURATION. [Ref. 2/6-18] STS 51-L MISSION PROFILE [From launch to landing].
[38] [Ref. 2/6-19] STS 51-L MISSION DATA.
[39] [Ref. 2/6-20] [STS 51-L] LAUNCH DATE CHRONOLOGY.
[40] [Ref. 2/6-21] STS 51-L MISSION ACCIDENT INITIAL ASSESSMENT. [Ref. 2/6-22] IMMEDIATE ACTIONS TAKEN.
[41] [Ref. 2/6-23] [STS 51-L investigative] TEAMS & ADDITIONAL TEAMS.
[42] [Ref. 2/6-24] STATUS [of investigation as of February 6, 1986].
[43] [Ref. 2/6-25] [NOT REPRODUCIBLE]. [Ref. 2/6-26] [NOT REPRODUCIBLE].
[44] [Ref. 2/6-27] [NOT REPRODUCIBLE]. [Ref. 2/6-28] [Investigation] ACTIVITIES CONTINUING.
MR. ALDRICH: Chairman Rogers, members of the Commission, my name is Arnold Aldrich, and I am manager of the National Space Transportation Systems Program Office at the Johnson Space Center.
(Viewgraph). [Ref. 2/6-29]
MR. ALDRICH: I am going to describe for you a little bit about the program management again to show you where I fit in the structure that Jesse described, and then I will describe the STS system elements, some of the system element performance, and then some of the orbiter subsystems.
Following me, Dr. Lovingood will describe the propulsion elements responsible by the Marshall Space Flight Center, and Bob Sieck will describe the launch and landing facilities that make up other portions of the STS system.
(Viewgraph). [Ref. 2/6-30]
MR. ALDRICH: The next chart deals with the program management relationships. We just passed over this chart. Level 1 control of the program is done here in Washington under Jesse, Associate Administrator for
Space Flight. They determine top level program requirements, budgets, schedules, policy for the agency on the Space Shuttle Program, and they deal with large budget items that would affect primary requirements in the overall program and the overall program schedules.
My office, as program manager at the Johnson Space Center, is management and integration of all program elements in support of the Level 1 organization. We do integrated flight system and ground system requirements, schedules and budgets, control of all project interfaces, control of changes exceeding program budgets of the different projects across the center, and those that impact overall STS program requirements, interfaces, and schedules.
Below that are the Level 3 projects at each center, and I will say more about those on the subsequent pages. Level 4 is defined on this chart by the specific contracts with industry that will be described for the fabrication, design, and provision of the flight hardware and the ground hardware that supports the STS program.
(Viewgraph). [Ref. 2/6-31]
MR. ALDRICH: The next chart says a little more about the concept of the program office at JSC for the STS program. This is what NASA calls the lead
center concept. That is a relatively small staff at NASA Headquarters for policy, overall budget, and overall program direction. There is a large program office under myself at the Johnson [46] Space Center that is responsible for control and integration of all elements of the Space Shuttle System.
This work across the system is identified in the detailed work breakdown structure. It is supplied to all elements across the program, both government and contractor, for all activities and program management, the office manager's projects at the various centers, and at those centers those projects that manage the contractors that provide the actual hardware that we are talking about here today.
Integration of this total system is identified as a government role. However, we also have contractor support in those areas, and I will identify them, some of the major contractor activities on a subsequent chart.
Project managers at the centers are also in a line responsibility and report through their directors to Jesse in an institutional fashion as well as through this program chain which I am describing to you within the Level 2 program office, we have a system, a very careful and detailed
documentation and control of all technical and management requirements for the program at all levels, and that will be discussed a little bit later in the day with some of the later briefings.
We also have very frequent communications nationwide within this program, and we use an extensive teleconferencing system, because travel is really impossible for the kind of day-to-day and continuous communications we use, and as was mentioned by Jesse, particularly in the last several years, we have very extensive involvement with the Department of Defense and the Air Force, both with their payloads and with the coming on line of the Vandenberg Launch Facility on the west coast.
(Viewgraph) [Ref. 2/6-32]
MR. ALDRICH: The next chart describes the structure of the government-industry team. That falls under the National Space Transportation System. Again, the overall policy and direction is the government at NASA Headquarters. My role as the JSC Lead Center is for program planning and control, system and cargo integration of the total system, operations and mission integration for the preparation and the flight of the Shuttle system. In executing those responsibilities-I am sorry for these acronyms; we tried a
chart with them spelled out, and they were very voluminous, and I have their names on a subsequent chart- Rockwell International Space Division is in charge of system and cargo integration and engineering in support of the STS program, and at the Johnson Space Center, also Rockwell International, the Rockwell support operations contract provides Shuttle engineering and operation support.
The Level 3 NASA projects of the National Space Transportation System, the orbiter, at JSC. Rockwell Space Division, Downey, California, is Prime. Space Shuttle Main Engines are the responsibility of the Marshall Space Flight Center, Rockwell International Rocketdyne Division is Prime. External tank, Marshall Space Flight Center, Martin Marietta Corporation, Michoud, Louisiana, near New Orleans, is a Prime Contractor.
Solid rocket boosters, United Space Booster Production Company is prime. Solid rocket motors are fabricated and refurbished by Morton-Thiokol in Brigham City, Utah, in support of the Marshall Center.
[47] The launch and landing facilities were developed in support of the Kennedy Space Center by a number of contractors, and in the last two years the Lockheed services operations contract is a consolidated contract that has those responsibilities in support of KSC.
The mission support at the Johnson Space Center for mission flight support, flight preparation, and crew training, Rockwell space operations contract is also a consolidated contract and that has recently come into being at the Johnson Space Center for consolidated contractor operations there.
DR. FEYNMAN: Could you tell me the difference between the solid rocket booster and a solid rocket motor?
MR. ALDRICH: Yes, sir. The solid rocket motor is the elements-well, I probably should let Dr. Lovingood give you that in detail, but basically the solid rocket motor are the elements with the propulsive grain in them, and the rest of the systems, the recovery systems, the gimballing systems, the electronics together make up the solid rocket booster as a total system.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-33]
MR. ALDRICH: This chart, in fact, deals with the elements of the STS program, the orbiter which I will be discussing in a few minutes, flight software, which goes in the orbiter but which controls all of the elements of the Space Shuttle System during the various phases of flight and even during ground checkout.
Main engine external tank and solid rocket
boosters. Flight crew equipment; have a significant activity in the program for spacesuits, for man maneuvering units which Jesse discussed, also for other crew equipments within the cockpit in support of the flight crew.
A number of cargo elements, and I will discuss some of those later, also for cargo integration of the various payloads that come from various places nationally and even internationally, integrating them into flyable cargoes to make them part of the National Transportation System. Launch and landing facilities and upper stages, and I believe Jesse described and gave you the names for each of these.
(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-34]
MR. ALDRICH: The next chart shows these pictorially. Again, it shows the solid boosters we just mentioned, the tank. The Space Shuttle main engines are shown behind the orbiter. The orbiter itself, there is cargo here. An element of the Space Transportation System is the Space Lab, which is provided by the European Space Agency and has been integrated by the Marshall Space Flight Center into the Space Shuttle.
The upper stages, the IUS, the Centaur we have talked about. The TOS is a proposed extension to that developed by private industry, and does not exist today
in the program. The three versions of the payload assist module each with additional capability depending upon the size and performance required for the given satellite or payload which is going to use it.
In addition, the launch and landing facilities at Kennedy are part of the Transportation System. The Control Center at Houston and later the Control Center to be built by the Air Force in Colorado Springs will be part of the National Transportation System. Mission planning and training activities at the Johnson Space Flight Center and other places around the nation, and a wide range of ground support facilities which I will discuss on the next chart.
[48] (Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/6-35]
MR. ALDRICH: The next chart discusses ground support. I have mentioned on the laun