UPDATE #43 - December 4, 1998

PART 1: Upcoming Chats
PART 2: Project News
PART 3: Monitoring in the Science Center of Mission Control
PART 4: Subscribing & Unsubscribing: How to do it

UPCOMING CHATS

Thursday, December 10, 1998, 9:30 AM Pacific Time: Chat with Orville and
Wilbur Wright!!
Just for fun we have two experts acting the roles of Orville and Wilbur
Wright for this special chat. It will be fun to see how well they can
answer the questions you would like to ask Orville and Wilbur Wright.
We will reveal their identity at the end of the chat.
To prepare for the chat review the information at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/wright/background/
Registration information is available at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/chats/#chatting


Wednesday, December 16, 1998, 9 AM Pacific Time: Narrottam Bansal,
senior materials research scientist

Narrottam works with a group of researchers to develop
materials that can withstand extreme environmental conditions. The work
done in this area will be important to the development of high speed
aircraft. Recently, Narrottom has been working in collaboration with
engine companies on the development of a special coating material for the
engine of the High Speed Civil Transport. Read Narrottam Bansal's
autobiography prior to joining this chat.
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/team/bansal.html
Registration information is available at
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/chats/#chatting

PROJECT NEWS

THE WRIGHT FLYER STATUS REPORT

Wright Flyer Online Status Reports appear on the site at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/wright/news/

Plans for moving the AIAA 1903 Model of the Wright Flyer

This week members of the Wind Tunnel Operations group have been reviewing
plans to move the Wright Flyer Model to the low bay of the 40x80 wind
tunnel. Special considerations must be made because the model is very
light, is not waterproof since it is made of cloth and wood and is very
delicate. It is definitely not the usual metal model being transferred.

Currently the move is planned for Friday, December 11, 1998. ADTO and the
Learning Technology Channel plan to broadcast the event at 9 AM Pacific.
For information about attending this event go to
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/adto/wfo.html


CELEBRATE THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY OF FLIGHT

See how you can celebrate the 95 Year Old Journey with the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA)

Visit http://www.faa.gov/education/wright.htm


POETRY CONTEST!

Create your own original poem about the Wright Flyer, the Wright brothers
or the Windtunnel Test or more!
For more information go to:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/wright/events/contest/poetry.html

WRIGHT FLYER WIND TUNNEL DATA LESSONS
The wind tunnel data lesson plans for the 1903 Wright Flyer Wind Tunnel
Test are being written up for the Internet.  Watch for news of these
lessons in future updates. Your class will be able to use the near
real time test data with these lesson plans!

MONITORING IN THE SCIENCE CENTER OF MISSION CONTROL

by Ray Oyung

November 5, 1998

We're on flight day seven (FD 7) and things are going nominally. You might
have heard this word often during media
interviews and discussion on STS-95 and it's definitely a good thing. It
basically means things are going normally as per
scheduled flight plan.

The mission is scheduled to end this Saturday (as of this writing) and
it's been very educational being part of this segment
of the project. I'm currently in one of 3 Science Centers with dozens of
other researchers listening to several key people
who manage daily operational shuttle activities. Everybody in Mission
Control is connected on the "loops" which is a huge
networked chat line. Imagine having 12 way calling on your telephone and
listening into 6 different conversations! We can
select various channels or loops (for example, air to ground 1; air to
ground 2; payload operations director; crew interface
coordinator; payload coordinator, etc.). We can listen to some or all of
these loops.

The structure for communication with the astronauts is quite elaborate.
Communications are divided into 2 groups. One is
the mission control group. The other is the payload group. Only one
position is allowed to speak directly to the astronauts
from the payload group. That person is called the Crew Interface
Coordinator (CIC). On the orbiter side, the Capsule
Communicator (CAPCOM) and the Flight Director are the only people who can
communicate with the crew. With 83
experiments in the payload on this mission, there may be quite a few
questions that the astronauts have when carrying out
these experiments. This is when we have to be on our toes. If an astronaut
has a question about our experiment we answer
back to the Experiment Systems Engineer (ESE) who then relays the message
to the Crew Interface Coordinator (CIC), and
up it goes to the astronaut.

So here's a typical scenario. Astronaut Ray calls down with a question
about strange sleep signals showing up on the
laptop just after instrumenting one of the other crewmembers. Ray calls
down to the CIC. Since the Sleep Team is listening
on the loops, they say to change from nominal procedures 03 to malfunction
procedure 01. The ESE relays this to the CIC
and the CIC sends the message to Astronaut Ray. Whew! I told you it was an
elaborate communication system. So now
you might be wondering why it's so complicated. With so many acronyms,
experiments and people involved in a shuttle
mission, communication to and from the crew must be clear and concise.
Mistakes are rare and this is one of the reasons
why they're rare.

SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING

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