USA Trainers
Prepared Discovery Crew for Return to Flight Mission
(10 July 2005) With the arrival
of the STS-114 crew at the Kennedy Space Center, virtually thousands of hours
of flight preparation and training have come to fruition.
The seven crew members are ready for flight thanks to the
dedication and efforts of a highly skilled and experienced training team.
United Space Alliance (USA) employees played a major role in getting the
astronauts ready for their mission. USA is responsible for training astronauts
to operate spaceflight hardware and systems, and to execute on-orbit operations
including rendezvous, docking and space walks. Most of the training takes place
at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, with some work done at KSC.
Typically, the process of flight-specific training begins when a crew is
assigned. In the case of the STS-114 crew, because of the two-year delay, the
training has lasted longer and has changed focus as the Return to Flight
mission has evolved.
Mission Commander Eileen Collins, Pilot James
Kelly and Mission Specialists Soichi Noguchi and Stephen Robinson began their
flight-specific training for a mission to change out crews at the International
Space Station (ISS) in February 2002, a year prior to their planned launch date
and a year prior to the Columbia accident. Following the accident, the flight's
objectives changed significantly. Instead of rotating ISS crewmembers, the
mission is now classified as a test flight to validate the hundreds of changes
made in response to the accident investigation, and training objectives were
altered accordingly.
"All of the training before Columbia was not
wasted," said Juan Garriga, USA's STS-114 Training Team Lead. "We've been able
to build on it. One of the new objectives is the Orbiter Boom Sensor System
(OBSS) survey. The crew operates the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), grabbing
the OBSS from the other side of the payload bay, unberthing it and conducting
the survey. We've trained them in this operation, building on previous RMS
training."
A Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, designed to expose the
underside of Discovery to cameras aboard the ISS to look for potential damage,
was also added to the flight plan. This required the crew to train extensively
in simulations to perform the full-circle rotation.
Collins and Kelly
recorded more than 240 hours of ascent simulation training, more than 125 hours
of entry simulations and more than 340 hours of on-orbit training.
Noguchi and Robinson, the two astronauts who will perform spacewalks during the
mission, each spent more than 350 hours underwater in the Johnson Space
Center's Neutral Buoyancy Lab training for their three Extravehicular
Activities.
Mission Specialists Andy Thomas, Wendy Lawrence and
Charlie Camarda were assigned to the Return to Flight crew after the Columbia
accident and after the mission objectives were changed.
"One of the
key skills we're helping the crew develop is Space Flight Resource Management,
or SFRM," Garriga said. "We evaluate their ability to co-ordinate together,
make decisions, manage resources, accomplish tasks, make the right calls and
delegate appropriately. SFRM is important to succeed as a crew."
For
every Shuttle crew, United Space Alliance assigns a flight-specific training
team consisting of certified instructors in all aspects of the Space Shuttle.
The Training Team Lead develops a study guide for the astronauts to acquaint
them with the Shuttle and its systems. The crew then advances to Single System
Trainers and, after passing qualification tests, proceeds as a group to the
Shuttle Mission Simulator.
The result is a crew that is thoroughly
trained and ready to go.
"It's been a long road," Garriga said, "but
it's been enjoyable and rewarding. The crew and we have kept a positive
attitude throughout, and it shows. We like teaching what we know; the crew sees
that, and they open up. We develop a special trust with one another."
United Space Alliance, established in 1995, is a leader in space operations
offering extensive experience in space launch and recovery operations; mission
planning and control; flight hardware processing; space flight training;
on-orbit assembly, payload deployment and servicing; rendezvous/proximity
operations and docking; large-scale integration and sustaining engineering.
United Space Alliance serves as NASA's prime contractor for the Space Shuttle
and provides operations services for the International Space Station. United
Space Alliance employs more than 10,000 people in Texas, Florida, and
Alabama.
(source: United Space Alliance)