The Space Shuttle: Roles, Missions and Accomplishments

✍ Scribed by David M. Harland

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 568
• Series: Wiley-Praxis Series In Space Science And Technology
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In "The space shuttle: roles, missions, and accomplishments", David Harland explains, for the first time, the scientific contribution that the space shuttle made to the international space programme. He focuses on the utility of the space shuttle instead of its development and, rather than employ a mission log format, each chapter is devoted to a specific type of operation, and the missions are discussed in this context. The book begins with a review of the origins of the space shuttle, and summaries of ground facilities and early test flights. Suceeding chapters are devoted to satellite operations (including deployment and retrieval of commercial satellites, TDRS, tethered satellites and free flyers); the great observatories (including the Hubble Space Telescope); solar system probes deployed from the shuttle cargo bay; Earth sciences missions; life sciences and microgravity research (including Spacelab and Spacehab); and Department of Defense missions. The Challenger accident and its consequences are reviewed in detail, and there are chapters describing the shuttle's role in supporting the American presence on the Russian Mir space station, and in facilitating the assembly in orbit of the International Space Station. After discussing possible future developments, the book concludes with tables of mission statistics, crews and payloads, and a comprehensive glossary and bibliography.

✦ Table of Contents

PART 1. OPERATIONS
1. Origins: Cost-benefit, Ways and means, The stack, Glide trials, Launch facilities
2. Shuttle operations: Test flights, The dreamtime, A major malfunction, Grounded, Return to flight, The long hot summer, Catch-up, Endeavour, The big test, Visiting rights, The milk run
3. Communications satellites: The Aces, Satellites galore, Ever more capacity, Tracking & data relay, Market factors
4. No mission too difficult: Anticipation and triumph, Two up and two down, Hot-wiring a satellite, Astronaut hard-hats, Try, try and try again, Back to basics, The task ahead
5. The darker side: Pact with the devil, An inauspicious start, Reconnaissance, Communications, Early warning, Navigation, Star Wars, Spaceflight engineers, Military-Man-In-Space, The return of the Titans
PART 2: WEIGHTLESSNESS
6. Materials processing: Electrophoresis, Phase partitioning, Protein crystals, Generic processors, Polymers, Fluids, melts and inorganic crystals, Combustion, Limitations of microgravity
7. Facilities for commercial research: Spacehab, Industrial space facility, Wake shield facility, All due credit
8. Biology: Flora, Fauna, Human
PART 3: EXPLORATION
9. Mr Hubble's telescope: The great observatory, Years of frustration, Deployment, Instruments, Aberration, Corrective optics, Observations, Top of the list! In our own backyard, Stars, clusters, galaxies and quasars, A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ... The big issue, Operational strategy
10. The gamma ray observatory: Instruments, Spacecraft, Results, Cosmic rays, Supernova remnants, Black holes, The burster enigma, Meanwhile, back home, A joy to work with
11. Spacelabs and free-flyers: Instruments, Missions, Varied programme, Clearing up an outstanding mystery, Free-flyers, Spartan, Orfeus
12. Forthcoming attractions: Advanced X-ray astronomy facility, Space infrared telescope facility, VLA-plus, Whither the shuttle
13. Galileo's ordeal: Which way? The long haul, The big day, Mission of exploration, Lost opportunities
14. Dante's Inferno: Ulysses, Slingshot, Primary mission, Meanwhile, Mission accomplished
15. Magellan's Triumph: Project definition, Mapping mission, Gravity survey, Last act
16. Home planet: Atmosphere, Radiation budget, Upper atmosphere research satellite, Atmospheric laboratory for applications and science, Spaceborne lidar, Terra firma, Mapping from orbit, Shuttle radar laboratory, Earth observing system, An integrated platform
PART 4: OUTPOST
17. Unexpected opportunity: Cooperation, Close approach, First tour, Atlantis ... now arriving! Space truck, Comings and goings, Good times and bad
18. An island in the sky: Freedom, Alpha, Two in one, The International Space Station, Assembly, Preparations, Operations, Round the clock, All year round, What goes up must come down, Future expansion
PART 5: CONCLUSIONS
19. The evolving role: The missed opportunity, Natural selection, The heavy-lifter, A matter of cost, Risky business, A mixed fleet, The Challenger's legacy
Shuttle mission log
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

✦ Subjects

Space Shuttle