FIELD JOURNAL FIELD JOURNAL FIELD JOURNAL FIELD JOURNAL

If at first you don't succeed, ...

Large complex payloads, such as Neurolab, customarily conduct a comprehensive, integrated test called a "Facility Trial Run" (FTR) at the launch site. Such tests are intended to be a "dry run", or "dress rehearsal" of sorts, in which selected critical payload activities are conducted using the intended available facilities to identify any incompatibilities and to validate the ground operations timeline.

Such a test was conducted by Ames Research Center at the Kennedy Space Center launch site support facilities during the summer of 1997. At this time a large team of ARC Science, Operations and Engineering team personnel traveled to KSC for several weeks to support these activities. A great number of objectives were met during the Neurolab FTR, and at the conclusion of the activity there was a debriefing in which the results were presented and discussed. Action items were assigned to ensure that when the time came for the actual mission, about six months later, the time-critical ground operations would go smoothly and with no major glitches which could jeopardize the scientific objectives of the mission.

While this FTR was quite comprehensive and certainly worthy of at least several Field Journals, this particular journal is about a second, much smaller (and yet very critical) FTR activity that I coordinated and supported and which finally occurred within just days of the STS-90 launch!

One of the important objectives of the original FTR which had not been met at that time (due to a variety of hardware and personnel availability reasons) was a validation of the pre- and post-flight hardware "turnover" operations associated with the E088 / VFEU experiment. Due to the complexity of this Aquatics experiment, these ground operations required the use of elaborate, powered Ground Support Equipment (GSE), needed to provide life support to the four flight toadfish specimens when they are loaded into the Fish Packages (FPs), both in the off-line laboratory and during transportation from the laboratory to the launch pad and into the Orbiter and Spacelab. Because this had not taken place at the Payload FTR, I was assigned an Action Item to coordinate and conduct an FTR to ensure that everything would happen as planned during the critical preflight turnover and transportation operations.

I drafted a letter to the Mission Management Office (MMO) which outlined the rationale for the test and requested limited technical and logistical support from several KSC organizations. [Click on the link to see the text of the letter that I drafted to the Mission Manager.] The response was somewhat "lukewarm." Neither MMO nor KSC seemed convinced of the importance of conducting such a test, and several members of the Mission Management and KSC Payload Management and Integration Engineering teams stated that large portions of the proposed FTR were not required and would not be supported by KSC. A flurry of e-mails and teleconferences ensued in which it was claimed by many that because the FPDUs had a standard power plug, the White Room was already outfitted with compatible standard power receptacles and the BTV had already been interfaced to the "shore power" receptacles at the pad on previous missions, the entire validation could be accomplished analytically as a paper exercise rather than by test. Even I started to question the need for the test. After all (I thought to myself) when I go to the appliance store and buy a toaster I don't request a "Facility Trial Run" to ensure that the toaster will be compatible with the standard line power and receptacle!

Well, I've always said that "one good test is worth a thousand pages of analysis and a hundred expert opinions," so in light of the perceived risks associated with not performing this modest test, I decided to pursue the matter further. The results were quite an "eye opener," as the photojournal below demonstrates:

	We received the "green light" from KSC and MMO to proceed with the test. March 27 was the deadline for the powered portions of the test which required the use of the flight FPs, as they entered their preflight hardware processing "flow" very soon after that date. The BTV arrived at the SSPF loading dock, and the FPDUs were unpowered (one at a time) and rolled from the off-line lab into the back of the van, where they were again powered.
	This image shows both of the large FPDUs, each supporting two FPs, loaded and powered in the back of the BTV, and restrained for the transportation to the pad which was about a 30-minute drive at low speed. The BTV generator and power bus were shown to be capable of powering both FPDUs. So far, so good, though it was decided that it would be best to keep the BTV speed down to below 30 mph and to plan an additional 10 to 15 minutes for transportation to keep the bumps in route to a minimum!
	The BTV and test support convoy arrives at Pad 39B. Attempts are made to power the BTV from a pad "shore power" receptacle so that the BTV generator could be turned off while awaiting the go ahead to bring them up to the 190-foot level for loading into the "White Room." This is where the troubles began! The cable shown coiled on the ground was retrieved from the access door (shown open) on the side of the BTV, but when the door was opened, the cable was found "swimming" in a several inch deep puddle of water which had accumulated in the stowage compartment, and was dripping wet! Use of the cable in this condition would have been hazardous, so plans to power the BTV from shore power were abandoned for the time being, and technicians had to build a new cable which would need to be tested on another day.
	Despite the problems with the BTV shore power cable, it was decided that it would be valuable to check the shore power receptacle at the pad to ensure that it could deliver the proper voltage to the BTV when the time came. Again, there were unforeseen difficulties. The power receptacles are of an "explosion proof" design with a threaded cap. The United Space Alliance (USA) technicians were unable to remove the cap, which had rusted onto the receptacle. Liquid Wrench was applied to the threads, but even two technicians using the 4-foot-long pipe wrench (shown here in the hands of the technician on the right) were unable to remove the cap! It seems that the BTV had not been hooked up to the Pad 39B shore power in quite some time!
	With the BTV shore power testing put off until the following week, pending fabrication of a new cable and removal of the stubborn cap, the test continued. We got word over the radio-net that the folks up in the "White Room" were ready for the FPDU, so the first unit was powered down and rolled out onto the BTV liftgate. This liftgate was neither completely level nor flat, and was barely wide enough for the wheelbase of the FPDU which is tall, somewhat top heavy, and weighs over 200 kg. (450 pounds) when filled with water and loaded with two FPs! This was considered hazardous, and those of us on the ground level got a bit nervous when one of the wheels went over the edge and the FPDU started to tip towards us! We decided that this part of the operation needed some improvement as well, and started brainstorming about the use of a forklift, or possibly even building a temporary loading dock and ramp!
	The elevator ride to the 190-foot level is astonishingly fast, and soon we were rolling the FPDU down the gantry to the "White Room." The "floor" of the gantry, like much of the Pad, is an open mesh, and looking down through the mesh can be quite disorienting and vertigo-inducing if one is afraid of heights! Measurements made on a previous facility walkdown had already convinced us that larger diameter FPDU wheels were needed for the mesh size of the gantry, and that the handles on the sides of the FPDUs would need to be removed so that they would fit through the narrow door to the White Room, so there were no surprises here!
	The White Room is quite small, and with other prelaunch operations underway, we needed to abide by some "man loading constraints" so that we wouldn't overcrowd the area. Here I am shown relaxing for a "photo opportunity" at the entrance to the gantry, with the door leading into the White Room shown at the far end. The small size of the White Room also meant that only one FPDU at a time could be inside; the second FPDU would need to remain powered in the BTV until the first two FPs had been loaded into the Spacelab and the first FPDU could be sent down in the elevator.
	Here, IPT Lead Brad Berch is shown observing the positioning and power up of the FPDU in the White Room. In spite of the assurances we had been given that appropriate power receptacles were already present in the White Room, we heard that a crew of electrical technicians had been working right up through the third shift the previous night replacing some of the power receptacles to make them compatible with the FPDU power plugs!

As you can see, we accomplished a lot on March 27, but needed to return with one of the FPDUs the following week to try to improve the FPDU / BTV loading and unloading operations at the Pad where there is no loading dock. This was combined with the further powered testing of the BTV - Pad shore power interface which could not be accomplished on the first test day due to the cable and receptacle problems.

	Here, KSC / Bionetics technician and BTV driver John Carver (known as "J.C.") is shown with the newly built replacement shore power cable in hand. By now, the USA electrical technicians had somehow succeeded in removing the power receptacle cap, but still there were problems. The new surprise was that the new cable plug was "keyed" differently than the receptacle connector and would not mate! J.C. is shown here modifying the keying of the cable plug using a Swiss Army Knife corkscrew and was able to make the cable mate. Now that's appropriate technology at work!
	With the BTV - Pad shore power plug modified so that it would mate, J.C. looks on as the USA technicians mate the cable and discover that there is no power on the contacts of the shore power receptacle! This was easily corrected, but it was still important to work out even these minor "glitches" now, rather than on L-2 days when the module late stow MVAK schedule would be very impacted.
	After weighing all of the options and consulting with both the KSC Ground Safety organization and the heavy lift operations personnel, it was decided that a forklift, combined with some cargo slings attached to the forklift blades, would be a much improved method of installing and removing the heavy and ungainly FPDUs into and from the back of the BTV at the Pad. The Pad certified forklift was secured and this operation was demonstrated by the first shift technicians to everyone's satisfaction. Later, at the request of the Pad operations lead, I coordinated with Payload Comm. to produce a training videotape for the second shift technicians (who would actually be performing this operation on L-2 days) using the photographs that I took of this demonstration (including these images). Finally, all of the pieces of this critical operation had "fallen into place," but not without a lot of coordination and work.

Lessons Learned:

In this particular case, it would have been very easy to be discouraged by the initial resistance that we encountered and to take the "path of least resistance." Certainly, this would have made for fewer hassles during the already hectic weeks leading up to the launch. However, I recognized that much would have been risked by not pursuing this test and took a strong stand for what I believed to be true. Though it was painful to do so at times, in retrospect I and many others are very glad that I had. The result was that at L-2 days, when everything needed to happen like "clockwork" to meet some very aggressive schedules, everything worked as planned!

I leave it to your imaginations to envision what might have happened at L-2 days had we not pushed so hard for this critical test!