MCC Status Report #11
MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-49 Status Report #11
Monday, May 11, 1992, 7 a.m. CDT
After a perfect high-speed rendezvous in orbit, but an
unsuccessful attempt to grab the Intelsat VI satellite, the crew
of Endeavour will try again today.
At 5:49 a.m.CDT today, flight controllers at Intelsat's
Headquarters in Washington, DC made a retrograde burn of their
spacecraft's large thrusters after conferring with the space
shuttle flight control team. The burn was made to improve the
spacing between the two spacecraft.
Endeavour and Intelsat are now about 12 nautical miles apart and
separating at a rate of about 8 nautical miles per orbit.
Planning shift flight controllers have been working diligently
through the night reviewing plans for today's capture attempts.
The mission management team will review those plans at 8 a.m. CDT
today. Based on the planning shift's work, the crew will begin
its maneuvers to rendezvous with Intelsat again at noon CDT.
Initiation of the final rendezvous phase is expected at 3:01 p.m.,
with the robot arm being powered up immediately thereafter.
Pierre Thuot and Rick Hieb are scheduled to exit the airlock at
4:05 p.m. A new, optional wrinkle is being added to the space walk
timeline. That would be for a capture bar bump test to help Thuot
get a better feel for the capture bar before he attempts to
capture the satellite. That bump test would take place about 5:10
p.m. CDT.
If all goes well, capture bar installation would be at 5:50 p.m.
and grapple by the robot arm at 6:10 p.m.
The crew has high hopes of a successful capture if it is able to
successfully utilize yesterday's learning experience. Mission
Specialist Thuot, who made the attempt while mounted on
Endeavour's robot arm portable foot restraint, reported that the
satellite was much more sensitive to contact than ground
simulations had predicted. Poor visibility on the dark side of
the Earth and inadequate positioning on the end of the robot arm
also contributed to the lack of success.