Missives from Mission Control – Post launch and preparing for docking

As Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its way to the Hubble Space Telescope, Dr. Ed Cheung of Aruba traveled to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to head the team that will supervise the astronauts as they complete their assignment installing new and replacement equipment at the observatory. The astronauts go through months of simulation before the launch to become proficient at handling the intricate tasks required. Dr. Cheung and his team will be in constant contact with the astronauts as they work; ready to evaluate and advise them as to what to do when things do not go exactly according to plan. This is something technicians always take into account once the actual job is attempted in outer space, no matter how much testing and practice was done on the ground.

On the morning of May 13, Dr. Cheung writes:

“The Shuttle has not arrived near Hubble yet, so it is quiet in our control center.  There are three Flight Control Rooms here, and this is where NASA personnel monitor the mission from the ground.  These three are named after their color: Red, White and Blue.  The Hubble team is assigned the Blue Flight Control Room (BFCR).  The Shuttle is controlled from the White room, which is the one you see on TV all the time.  The Red room is used only for emergencies.”

“We work at our consoles, and monitor screens for data and listen on headsets.  The Shuttle data is on the built-in consoles, and we have been trained how to use those in previous training simulations.  The Hubble data is on separate smaller desktops and our laptops.  We are used to seeing those from back home.  We also have really big screens in front to see the big map (tracking where Hubble, the Shuttle, and comm satellite footprints, day/night line are) and also another screen that changes depending on what we are doing.”

“We listen to voice channels called ‘loops’.  Usually, we monitor several loops at once; although anyone may listen to any loop, who is allowed to speak on each one follows a strict protocol.  For example, the top person in command of the entire mission is the Flight Director.  This position was made famous during Apollo 13 by Gene Kranz (whom I met him a few years ago).  The Flight Director (abbreviated “Flight”) has his own loop, and only the top level people speak on that one.  Monitoring this loop allows you to know what is going on at the highest level.  One of the persons on this loop is “Payload”.  He/she represents the hardware being flown that mission.  Payload has a loop of his own where his subordinates use to communicate with him.  One of the persons allowed to talk on this loop is “Servicing Mission Manager”.  This person is the top Hubble person in the hierarchy.  I am part of “Systems”, and I use a fourth level loop to communicate with my subordinates.”

“To start a conversation, a person says three words.  The first word is the party they want to reach.  The second word is who they are themselves, and the third is the name of the loop they want to use.  Of course, they do this on a loop that the intended person is expected to monitor.  This way, a person can listen to several conversations at once, and just follow them lightly.  If they hear their call sign mentioned, they can find out who is looking for them, and which loop to “punch up” to respond.  All these simultaneous conversations are controlled from the panel with the yellow display in the image.  It sounds complicated, but with training, you can do it smoothly. We install WFC3 on the next shift after mine; that should be very exciting.”

Dr. Cheung reports he will be happy to answer personal inquiries regarding the HST by sending an e-mail to ed@edcheung.com. Official information and updates on the mission can be seen at the Hubble site: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/SM4/multimedia/index.html. 

Story by Rosalie Klein