William Atkins
Monday, 06 April 2009 20:56
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 4
So, the NASA astronauts had been tasked to make a space repair of Solar Max while it orbited in space—the first of its kind repair and maintenance mission in space.
Luckily, the satellite contained grapple bars so that the space shuttle crew could grab onto it while flying next to it in their orbit around the Earth.
Shuttle commander Crippen came up to the satellite in order to intercept it, performing a series of proximity operations (prox ops) and rendezvous (rend) maneuvers to get close to it.
When in position, astronauts Nelson and van Hoften donned their spacewalking suits, including their Manned Maneuvering Units (
MMUs), and flew out to the satellite in order to grab it and place it into the payload bay for some much needed maintenance and repair.
The MMUs were propulsion backpacks used by NASA astronauts early in the space shuttle program. The backpacks allowed the astronauts to perform untethered spacewalks outside of the space shuttle
On the first attempt, on mission day three, Nelson tried to grab the satellite with a Trunnion Pin Acquisition Device (TPAD), a fancy name for a tool designed to capture the satellite.
He tried three times but on each occasion he failed to get it secured. Unfortunately, his attempt to then try to grab one of its solar arrays by hand made the Solar Max satellite tumble out-of-control about its three perpendicular axes. The spacewalk was called off for a second attempt the next day.
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