STS-51L Flight Director Loop Extended Coverage
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- čas přidán 10. 11. 2023
- An extended version of the Flight Director Loop from the STS-51L mission starting at T-31 seconds through to the flight controllers being released from their stations about an hour after the accident.
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Commenters should remember that these people in Mission Control were NOT the decision makers in the launch of STS-51-L. They did their job as they were tasked, notified that (all other range and equipment aspects they manage in compliance) that a launch was suitable. At least two men there, the flight director, Jay Greene, as well as the Mission Operations Director, Gene Kranz, were part of a team to save one mission 16 years earlier, on Apollo 13. I'm always in awe of these and all others here, who faced this defeat.
Well said
When I commented “The CYA begins” I should have been more specific about NASA management. I think they were under a ton of pressure to get the “Teacher In Space” up in time for Reagan’s State of the Union speech. But they had known about the SRB and the ET bipod situations for a long time.
Although Jay Greene and Gene Kranz were among the teams of people who saved the crew of Apollo 13. This was a situation where there was nothing they could do to save this crew.
The last man to speak to Challenger, astronaut Dick Covey ("Challenger, go at throttle up") , was among the crew of the Shuttle's return-to-flight mission, STS-26. The size of an astronauts' heart, soul and balls is just astounding and awe-inspiring.
"...reports that the vehicle exploded."
"...copy."
True professionalism in the face of tragedy
It's insane when you think about it. You've just been told that seven of your closest friends are dead, and in your position as a NASA flight director you know that all you can say is "...copy".
Personally, if I worked in Mission Control, I'd try to avoid getting to know the astronauts as much as possible just for this very reason.@@mazdaman0075
@@alansmithee183There was the special tragic in this case that Jay Greene had gotten very close to the Challenger crew. His mentor and friend Glynn Lunney had actually warned him about this once, but at least officialy more out of consideration he might not be able to make necessary hard decisions if he was too close.
One of the darkest hours of the space flight history
No matter how much you watch it and from so many angles thanks to you LM5, but it still hits hard!
I agree
Doesn't cover the fact that you dropping videos for us is like Christmas but for all year long! Thank you LM5 seriously.@@lunarmodule5
God, no matter how many times I watch this, I pray that this is the one time I will see a different result.
You and me both.
To make it worse the whole world was watching. My entire grade school class was watching
3:27 when Greene turns to Kranz. No words exchanged. Haunting.
What a day in history. A very memorable time. These men and women now in mission control are heroes. January 27 Apollo 1 fire, January 28 Challenger explosion. I was at the site of Apollo 1 when on January 28 2012, Betty Grissom had laid flowers. The tour guide pointed out that the remains of the challenger were sealed away in these large silos. Never understood why they did that.
Just as shocking today as when it happened.
Yes agree
Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
How is it that we are only now hearing the "extended" flight control loop? I've heard this many times over the years, and it always ends with the LSO conversation. I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in how the tapes were secured, FCOH implemented, etc. Thank you LM5 for making this version available, wherever it came from.
The audio has been available on the internet archive a while now. As I understand it, audio is digitised periodically, dependent on resources. The US National Archive holds 1000's of audio and film that is still sitting there 60+ years after it was recorded, waiting to be digitised. If I want to have them produced it would cost many £/$ to do so. Hope that somewhat answered your question. Regards LM5
@@lunarmodule5One thing I wondered about when listening was, did this new audio material have any time stamps? Do we know how much time had passed until they were able to finally release the people?
And a big thanks to you for making it available, even if at least for me it is still difficult to listen to. I just can't focus only in the technical side. There is so much hidden emotion, despair, shock, but also complete emptyness in the voices, especially in the voice of Jay Greene. It still hurts to listen to it, imagining what he went through...
@@lunarmodule5 Thank you. I would personally love to get a job digitising stuff like this!
@@ksracing8396 there were no timestamps...I am guessing the conversation between RSO is a continuation when he is talking about not being able to get into the area for 50 mins after the accident...you will hear easily where the tape starts because it becomes much clearer. I did have to edit the tape so the actual tape is over an hour long from but the release point of the controllers is about 45 into the tape
@@spaceworldupdate437 me too
Tight team . When 'Flight' calls your position he wants an *immediate* response - EECOM at 9:05 doesn't respond quickly enough and gets a 2nd call .
This and 9/11 i would like to forget ... so sad.
Thank you Simon 😪
Welcome Tom, it's a difficult watch and listem
This morning is etched in my mind, as it is to anyone alive and old enough to remember it. I wasn't watching live coverage, I was walking to work, having reluctantly left coverage behind in order to get to work on time.
It was a crisp, cool, sunny morning, and having enjoyed the walk of about a kilometer, I was feeling great! When I walked in the door at the job, I was immediately greeted with word from the office manager that the Shuttle had blown up and I rushed to get the details on the air (working at a radio station). It happened while I was walking. I was 325 miles (525 km) to the northwest.
A horrible sequence of bad calls and outside pressure to get off the ground. But, spaceflight will remain hazardous. SpaceX worries me.
12:21 Do you know how many years I’ve been trying to find where they requested the RSO to call for military assistance for rescue? It was completely missed in any unit diaries or NASA release that I could ever find. A USAF Jolly Green crashed due to falling debris what I was told at the time but it could have been misheard and hearing that comment makes me think it didn’t happen. Thank you! That’s been like a 30+ year search for me.
Commit (lift off) still makes me really uncomfortable. Those SRBs lighting up was the moment there was no changing the outcome.
You can see Jay Greene’s body language right after the mishap- heavy breathing. I’m sure he was haunted by that for the rest of his life.
He was - Kranz wrote in his new book that Greene was never the same after that day. And he never went back on console, even he still worked for NASA until the early 2000th...
Neither was Leroy Cain after Columbia was lost during reentry.
“And then we all sneaked out the back door”.
Jay Greene
The calm demeanor is admirable. Exactly what is needed to capture what got recorded for critical analysis.
It is concerning that a definite process wasn’t already in play to copy/save/archive the data. It sounded very fragile in the moment where critical data could have been lost. Usually NASA contingency plans are pre-scripted so there is no assuming or guessing.
Had Challenger not blown up on STS-51L, she would have been modified to carry the Centaur-G upper stage in time for the "Death Star mission" (and no the astronauts were not joking) where Challenger and Atlantis were to launch the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft using the Centaur-G Prime upper stage within five days of each other. This presented a huge problem because you have a huge amount of high energy propellant (Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen) in the payload bay and in the event of an abort had to be dumped overboard. On top of that the SSME's would be pushed to 109% rated thrust and the crew size was reduced to four astronauts. In a way, the Challenger Accident prevented a even bigger accident with the shuttle and it Centaur-G upper stage.
While all this was going on, the Air Force was prepping SLC-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base for the first Space Shuttle flights in order to carry spy satellites and other satellites that needed to be launched into polar orbit. NASA was developing the filament wound style SRB'S for the launches coming from Vandenberg Space Force Base. In the end, after the Challenger Accident, all Shuttle flights from Vandenberg were canceled and the Centaur-G was banned from the shuttle.
I saw it from my backyard in Tampa...I do remember the cold.
Do anyone know what role Gene Kranz had in the MCC that day? Notised he got up and ran somewhere shortly after it happened. Probably to coordinate something, but would be interesting to know what his title was that day?
Gene Kranz was the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) representative on console for the 51L launch. At this point he hadn't been a Flight Director for over a decade, moving into management shortly after the Apollo 17 launch in December 1972 when he became the Deputy MOD manager. He was promoted to MOD Manager in 1983.
Good morning, across the Pond, LM5. What a pleasant surprise for a Saturday morning!
Well, its a good afternoon from here to the good morning there - Hope you like this one
I often wonder how history would have been different if there had been an RSLS abort on this flight (Main Engine Cutoff before liftoff)
The mission probably gets delayed 3-6 months, and in the meantime SRB joint upgrades that were already in the pipeline possibly come online.
They had already ordered new cases with the "double tang clevis" (also known as the "capture latch") because the joint flexing was become more of an issue as the current SRB cases aged (more use = more out of round)
Aerojet had been working on the "filament wound Advanced Solid Rocket Motor" which had the capture latch. Aerojet knew of the issues that Morton Thiokol was having and knew that the filament wound cases could not tolerate flexing at all, hence the capture latch
Terrible decision to launch in that cold environment, on that particular day!
Sadly if this didn't happen this day, it would have happened eventually because "go" culture blinders infected NASA management. It would have been just a different crew lost.
@@c7042 depends on what day.
2:06 Mike Smith- "Uh, oh!"
What is that parachute that you see descending? I had never seen it before... Excellent work LM5!!
People have always said it was a parachute from one of the SRBs...
It could have been a pararescue medic. You can hear them say "thats probably a paramedic"
@lunarmodule5 I think it was. If you watch the official analysis video from the investigation you can see the SRB nose cone and parachute falling behind the SRB when it was exiting the vapor cloud.
Quite a tragic day
RIP Jay Greene
Ditto
20:01
I wonder if he was trying to prove or disprove Robert Ebeling's warnings.
I wonder if that was Alan McDonald, VP of Morton Thiokol. He was present in Mission Control at a terminal that day and has since said in interviews he asked for the playback of the launch tapes to look for evidence of O-ring failure.
McDonald was at KSC, not at JSC Mission Control. This discussion about a replay is between FD Jay Greene, EECOM and GC. As far as the discussions between Morton Thiokol und NASA ( Marshall management) is concerned, nobody at JSC at this time had any idea they had ever taken place. Even Shuttle program Manager Arnie Aldrich, who was at KSC, had not been informed about this teleconference that had taken place the night before.
I wonder why someone on the loop would think that booster parachute was a paramedic. That soon after the mishap and the fact that paramedics don’t parachute in.
Blind hope?
Merge this video with the cut from the start of T-9 minute hold. I have that if you need it!
The CYA begins.
What BS. These people had nothing to do with any coverup.
None of the people in the MOCR were in the launch decision chain. That was upper management.
Yes, it was management and contractors like Morton Thiokol. They were all in political cahoots and it cost 14 lives. They knew there was trouble with ET insulation at the bipod connection that caused.Columbia’s loss at the same time they knew about the danger of launching Challenger when it was below 40 degrees.
@@jimwatson842 And yet there was a Thiokol engineer who warned NASA management repeatedly about the dangers of launching in cold like that. He was ignored. His name escapes me, but as I recall, his warning was very specific to the O-rings.
@@gasaholic47 Roger Boisjoly.
9:56 "probably a paramedic" no one was ever sure about that lone shute. Some said it was the nose cone of a booster. I had to be, right?
It was. No paramedic has a chute that big and no one was allowed in for st least 50 minutes.
In one of the videos you can see the nose cone and parachute exiting behind the SRB when it left the vapor cloud so that was probably it