A rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia (2014)
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
It was known well in advance of the Columbia disaster that the foam pieces dislodged during launch. It was known that they caused damage to the heat shield ceramic tiles. It was known that displacement of even a few tiles could lead to catastrophic failure on reentry.
There were no steps taken to minimize or eliminate foam impacts. There was no protocol or infrastructure in place for in orbit imaging of the heat shield to check for structural damage, hence the decision not to perform visual inspection. There was no rescue plan.
These factors combined to create an impossible scenario.
Do you rush through a refurbishment of a second vehicle of the same design for rescue? That's an extremely risky call that could cost the lives of more astronauts.
The point I am making is that in all complex systems, failure should be an expected result, and mitigation strategies should already be in place.
The best time to rescue Columbia was before it ever launched.
In 1960's Soyuzes were launched sometimes without orbital module - project Zond; that's saving of about 15% of mass. Even if that wouldn't be sufficient, Zonds were launched on Protons with DM kicker - and that combination flew as far as over the Moon, so I'm sure it could match Columbia orbit inclination and height.
Russians launch on average more often than anybody else, so they could pull that attempt. Problems are that Soyuz spacecraft takes 2 years to manufacture - but money could have helped there, especially in 2003, before oil prices made incomes larger in Russia. Protons were manufactured in larger quantities - may be more that 10 per year. Even with one Soyuz - for 3 crew - some Progress spacecrafts, which are built in larger numbers, could be added rather soon, maintaining the remaining Columbia crew until further options would become available.
So, to sum this up - Russian spacecrafts could technically reach Columbia in 2003.
I imagine the preparation time for those rockets is less than the shuttle and that it'd require a much smaller payload, which could make it even more flexible.
TL;DR Probably not. The only existing vehicle that could autonomously rendezvous with the Shuttle was Progress and it couldn't make it to the Columbia's inclination. [2]
[1] I used unmanned flights to the ISS here since anything else is unlikely to be in production to be re-purposed by NASA. (Also I don't know where to start looking for an easy list of alternatives).
[2] It might have been possible but it would have required cooperation from Russia and China and then there's no docking adapter on Columbia's mission so Progress would have had to keep station while Columbia's crew did an EVA to get the supplies.
The time it would take to build, prepare, and launch the rocket that would carry it would, of course, sink the whole idea anyway.
According to the accident report, the time in orbit was limited by breathing consumables, specifically the lithium hydroxide used to remove CO2, and the onboard oxygen. Both were probably good for about 30 days.
The report says Columbia had 448fps of propellant available. The deorbit burn was at least 200fps, so that leaves at most 248fps for other uses. The rendezvous burn plans listed in the report for the hypothetical Atlantis rescue list propellant use of over 300fps which is clearly too much if rendezvousing with the dumb supply bag is even comparable, let alone worse.
The report does mention this briefly, discussing an Ariane 4 that was almost ready to go at the time. It says, "The challenge with developing a supply kit, building an appropriate housing and separation system, and reprogramming the Ariane seems very difficult in three weeks..." but doesn't mention the feasibility of rendezvousing with that housing. Whether that's because it can be done or because it's not even worth looking at that sort of detail I don't know, but I'd bet on the latter.
The only reason Atlantis was even possibly maybe sort of an option is because it was already nearly ready to go, close the end of its preparation for launching its own mission not too much later.
This is all leaving aside the fact that the Russians (or, indeed, anybody) don't just have rockets sitting around ready to go at a moment's notice.
> If you launch from Baikonur directly into a 46° orbit, you will drop spent rocket stages on China. That is why the Russians launch into a 51° orbit, even though their launch site is at 46°.
> With a Proton, you have enough delta-v to launch into 51° and then make a change of plane to 39°.
It could have made the orbit just fine it just wouldn't be able to boost the shuttle into the ISS's plane. It probably could have brought them supplies if China agreed to allow the spent boosters to fall.
"Without on-orbit pictures of Columbia, the Debris Assessment Team was restricted to using a mathematical modeling tool called Crater to assess damage, although it had not been designed with this type of impact in mind. Team members concluded over the next six days that some localized heating damage would most likely occur during re-entry, but they could not definitively state that structural damage would result. On January 24, the Debris Assessment Team made a presentation of these results to the Mission Evaluation Room, whose manager gave a verbal summary (with no data) of that presentation to the Mission Management Team the same day. The Mission Management Team declared the debris strike a “turnaround” issue and did not pursue a request for imagery.
Even after the Debris Assessment Teamʼs conclusion had been reported to the Mission Management Team, engineers throughout NASA and Mission Control continued to ex- change e-mails and discuss possible damage. These messages and discussions were generally sent only to people within the sendersʼ area of expertise and level of seniority.
At 2:30 a.m. EST on February 1, 2003, the Entry Flight Control Team began duty in the Mission Control Center. The Flight Control Team was not working any issues or problems related to the planned de-orbit and re-entry of Columbia. In particular, the team indicated no concerns about the debris impact to the left wing during ascent, and treated the re-entry like any other."
The decision making process was described in far more detail in the linked report.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/11/columbia...