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From: starrfie@hydro.la.asu.edu (Sumner Starrfield) Subject: MCC Status Report 12 Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 21:08:16 MST MISSION CONTROL CENTER STS-61 Status Report #12 Tuesday, December 7, 1993, 6 p.m. CST STS-61 Mission Specialists Tom Akers and Kathy Thornton are getting ready for their second space walk -- the fourth of a record five planned for STS-61 -- to install the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement unit and a computer coprocessor. In addition, the two space walkers hope to perform some easy activities to prepare for the installation of insulation around two of the Hubble Space Telescope's old magnetometers after space walkers Jeff Hoffman and Story Musgrave discovered that parts of one of the unit's shell had come loose. Akers and Thornton are expected to step out of the airlock about 9:52 p.m. CST. Their first chore will be removal of the High Speed Photometer from the telescope and the installation of the COSTAR package in its place. The 7 by 3-foot package is designed to correct for the spherical aberration in the telescope's primary mirror before light reaches its faint imaging systems. Controllers at the Space Telescope Operations Control Center will turn off the power to the HSP before Thornton, on the end of the shuttle's robot arm, opens the access door latches with a power ratchet tool. Akers will climb inside the compartment and disconnect the HSP before helping Thornton remove it along guide rails. Thornton will grasp the HSP with handles while Mission Specialist Claude Nicollier maneuvers her and the phone booth-sized instrument out of the compartment and onto a temporary parking fixture on the side of the payload bay. Thornton then will be positioned above the COSTAR storage canister so that she can grasp its handles, and with the help of Nicollier and the arm, pull it out of its storage compartment and position it in front of the access door. Akers will again enter the instrument compartment and help align COSTAR on the HSP guide rails. Together, they will insert COSTAR into the cavity, and Akers will tighten its fasteners and reattach electrical cables. The COSTAR installation is expected to take about 3 hours, 10 minutes, and will be followed by power-up and aliveness testing by the STOCC. A functional test of COSTAR will begin about six hours later. After Hubble is rotated on its lazy Susan and the STOCC turns off the telescope's computer, the two space walkers will turn their attention to increasing its speed and memory with the installation of a 386 coprocessor. Akers, who will be on the end of the robot arm for this job, will open the protective enclosure that houses the onboard computer. Thornton will carry the coprocessor from its storage compartment to the telescope, where Akers will remove the existing flight computer's handles. Thornton will install them on the coprocessor, mount it to the resulting handle mounting holes with four bolts and make the appropriate electrical connections. The entire operation is expected to take about 1 hour, 40 minutes, and will be followed by a full checkout of the coprocessor. About five hours later, the STOCC will completely reconfigure the computer and its flight software. If time allows, the space walkers then will collect some aluminized kapton and dacron mesh multilayer insulation for placement around the telescope's two old magnetometers during the fifth space walk. The seven-member crew was awakened at 5:57 p.m. CST Tuesday to the sounds of Johnny Nash singing "I Can See Clearly Now" as all of Endeavour's systems continue to perform well. The shuttle is circling the globe once every 96 minutes in a 320 by 313 nautical mile orbit.
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