Killing "Death Star:" be persistent in advocating for safety
Abstract
In July of 1982, Congress mandated a Shuttle/Centaur Program to launch Galileo and Ulysses satellites by May of 1986 and subsequently to collaborate with the U.S. Air Force for Department of Defense (DOD) missions. In order to pair these two existing programs, the shuttle liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellant fill/drain/dump system had to be modified, as shown Fig. 1, because the Centaur propellant was loaded at the same time as the External Tank and Centaur propellant had to be dumped for a launch abort or failure for Centaur to deploy prior to Orbiter landing. The Centaur also required multiple design changes to integrate with the shuttle payload bay, including modifications of the tank, the fill/drain/dump system, the integrated support system, and software updates, Fig. 2 compares the external physical dimensions the Atlas Centaur versions. The only similarities to the uncrewed Centaur were the RL-10 engines, and that cryogenic LOX and Hydrogen were only separated by a single bulkhead.
- Publication:
-
The Journal of Space Safety Engineering
- Pub Date:
- September 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.jsse.2018.10.003
- Bibcode:
- 2018JSSE....5..140J