WIRE is ready to ship to the launch site. The flight operations readiness review was held on July 21st, and the pre-ship review was held on July 22. Everything is ready to go, and it looks like the rocket will be ready.
In early July, we removed the pigtail harness which connects between the
Pegasus separation system and the spacecraft. We sent this pigtail to Orbital
for the buildup of the flight separation system. The left photo shows the
view under the spacecraft. The right photo shows the spacecraft just above
the saw horses. Steve Manning, our flight assurance representative, watches
the lift from just outside the clean tent.
These photos show one step in the qualification of the quick disconnect
joints (QD). The QD connects the cryostat's safety vent to the safety vent
attached to the L-1011 carrier aircraft during the captive carry portion of
the Pegasus launch. If the cryostat were to warm and vent hydrogen during
captive carry, this system will carry the hydrogen to a safe location
where it will vent to the atmosphere. The QD breaks at drop, and a door
covers the hole in the Pegasus fairing. The QD must go through a thorough
qualification program since it is part of this safety critical system. Forty
QD's were built by the same process at the same time from the same lot of
material; we test the entire lot, some to failure, to ensure that any of the
five units we call "flight" will do its job. These photos show a QD
undergoing separation testing. The fixture is designed to simulate the
conditions at Pegasus drop from the L-1011. There are two steel-cable
lanyards in the system. The taut one is part of the fixture. It supports a
large weight until the operator is ready for the test. The slack one is
connected to a lever which provides a rotational load to the QD as the Pegasus
drops. The bellows at the top is the load-isolation system which flys on the
L-1011. The QD is the straight piece of pipe below the bellows and lever-arm.
The notch in the pipe is visible in the right photo. The pipe is designed to
break at the notch. The system is instrumented to measure load over time, so
we can make sure the QD breaks before the spacecraft does. We break 35 of the
40 units we made to measure the force of each, giving us confidence that each
of the five flight units will break without excessive load.
This photo shows the test conductor workstation with the test conductors'
mascots. The rack on the left is the airborne support equipment (ASE) which
will fly on the Pegasus L-1011.
Previous updates:
August 18, 1997
October 20, 1997
October 31, 1997
November 7, 1997
November 14, 1997
November 21, 1997
December 5, 1997
December 23, 1997
January 9, 1998
January 16, 1998
January 23, 1998
January 30, 1998
February 6, 1998
February 20, 1998
March 12, 1998
March 23, 1998
April 3, 1998
April 20, 1998
April 25, 1998
May 29, 1998
June 3, 1998
June 17, 1998
June 30, 1998