Material Reviews and The Coming Week

I went in to work yesterday to help close some older papers. The first one I tackled was a material review (MR). Basically, there were a bunch of problem reports (PR) taken out on one of the pieces of ground service equipment (GSE) but the problem is that the panel became obsolete and was replaced by a new panel. The panel, know as the -613 panel, provided an interface to flow gaseous nitrogen (GN2), gaseous helium (GHe), and fuel for the orbiter. One of the main problems is that a couple of the supports were becoming corroded and needed to be fixed. Also, the rotating service structure (RSS) had been modified and at the time the old panels were temporarily removed but when the modification was complete the new panels were put into service. So in the end these old service panels are sitting around with little to no use. But as mentioned in another post, you can't do ANYTHING on the space center without a piece of paper saying you can do it.

The MR that I wrote stated, but in a more official manner, what I just described above and went into further detail on how it poses some serious safety issues and it would not be cost effective to reinstall the panels. It was requested that the panels be 'abandoned in place' and later scrapped for parts. The MR has to go through a review board and approved by Boeing and NASA.

Not very exciting, but it's what I do.

Saturday marked the start of the countdown for STS-120. At 1400 EDT the clock started ticking down. It also marked the start of the S0007 (pronounced soo-seven), which is the shuttle launch procedure book. There are about 6 seperate books that deal with S0007 based on where the count down is (i.e. T-48 hrs to T-43 hrs). At this point personnel are on console for pretty much the duration of the countdown until launch performing tests, checks, purges, and other things to get the shuttle ready to go.

Tomorrow I will be working 1700 to about 0100 or 0200 and we will be doing what is known as BITE tests on the solid rocket boosters (SRB) and the orbiter. With a BITE test, the system is started, without really being started and runs through all of its processes to check for any kind of malfunctions.

There is a mandatory minimum of 8 hours between shifts. Which means if I leave at 0100, I cannot come back to work until 0900. Which kind of sucks because I have to drive all the way back to Daytona, sleep for a few hours, and then head back to work for the launch. I really haven't figured out what I'm going to do yet. But it should be interesting. I do have a strong hunch that the launch is going to be delayed. The weather does not look too promising for Tuesday. So we'll see.