Sky & Telescope February 1982 [antikvár]

Returning from its unprecedented second trip into space, Columbia glides toward a landing in California's Mojave Desert.years ago. But hours earlier, in a different part of the building, there had been another "patch raising," this one the first of its kind.The new tradition was born as the first Space Shuttle scientiflc payload, designated OSTA-1 for NAS A's Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications, completed its mis-sion aboard Columbia. The OSTA-1 controllers, stationed in a miniature version of the primary control room called the POCC (for Payload Operations Control Center), had worked for two days to salvage as much data-gathering from the shortened flight as possible. Wh en Engle and Truly finally de-activated the pallet of experiments stored in the orbiter's payload bay, about seven hours before landing, the scientific team agreed that its mission also had ended well. And while their counterparts in the mission control room were still preparing for Columbia's return from space, the OSTA controllers had a celebration of their own.A MINIMUM MISSIONAs it was, the landing on November 14th was a hard-won victory. A little more than two days earlier at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and after weeks of delays, the craft had risen to orbit for the second time. No spacecraft before had ever done so, but the shuttle orbiter, designed to fly a hundred times or more, should soon make that achievement commonplace. The second flight, designated STS-2, was to be a crucial demonstration of the shuttle's reusability.In addition, there would be important testing of the newly installed Remote Manipulator System (RMS) a mechanical"Columbia's" Troubled RepriseTHERE WAS no télévision picture on the big screen in the Houston control room, but then, it wasn't really needed. In fact, the sight of the Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia gliding beneath a blue, cloud-dotted sky would have been a distraction to the dozens of NASA controllers monitoring the craft's final approach to a desert runway in California. Their displays told them that as-tronauts Joe Engle and Richard Truly werebringing the shuttle's troubled second flight to a near-perfect, if early, conclusion.The pleased controllers at the Johnson Space Center were still applauding as Columbia rolled to a stop at Edwards Air Force Base some 2,200 km away. Just before watching a replay of the landing, they ap-plauded once more as the STS-2 mission patch was hung on the wall, according to tradition begun in the Gemini program 16Controllers for the shuttle's experiments celebrate the end of their mission. 118 Sky and Telescope, February, 1982_