GEORGE DILLER: Joining us now here in the Firing Room at the Public
Affairs console is Robbie Ashley. He was the STS-117 payload mission
manager here at the Kennedy Space Center and had much to do with
preparing these trusses for flight. Robbie, welcome. And this, these
segments have been here for awhile. How far back does preparations for this
flight go?
ROBBIE ASHLEY: That's right, George. These elements actually showed
up in December of 2000 for the S3 element and January 2001, a month later,
for the S4 element. So it's been a little over six years since they've been
here, and we've had a lot of folks working on them over that timeframe.
DILLER: Well, we'll go ahead and roll some tape now, and perhaps you can
give us some idea of some of the activities that we're seeing that prepared
these truss segments for launch.
ASHLEY: OK. I'll be glad to. This is NASA's Superguppy heavy-lift cargo
aircraft landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility, and this is back in December
of 2000. It's bringing the S3 element from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where it was,
the primary structure was manufactured out there at the Boeing facility in
Tulsa. And there, as you can see, they've opened the entire nosecone of the
guppy aircraft, opens up to get access to the cargo bay. And now they're
extracting the S3 element inside its shipping fixture from the cargo bay hull
and transporting it over to our Payload Processing Facility. The, it's not
shown on the video, but the S4 element, as I mentioned, arrived a month
later, and it actually made the trip across country from Tulsa, over the road
on a special truck. And this is actually three years later, in 2004, after we've
had initially completed work on the S3 and S4 elements, and this is the
traditional key ceremony that we have in space station, signifying the
transfer of ownership of the hardware from the Boeing Company to the
government. And this is Chuck Hardison, the senior manager for flight
element processing here, for the Boeing Company, presenting the key to
Scott Gehring, who was leading up the vehicle office for the space station
program at the time. And here's part of our larger team that worked on the
S3 and S4 elements, getting them ready. And here we are jumping forward
again. This is in September of 2006. We had just completed replacement of
the six batteries on the lower deck of the S4 element and we're bringing the
integrated element back over to its normal processing stand following that
battery changeout, and over there, once over there, we'll complete all of our
final testing that we need to do that, that we had to do as a result of changing
out those batteries and then prepare the element for launch. And this is
actually a shot out at the launch pad, as you can see, of the rotating service
structure of Pad A, and this is their first retraction of the rotating service
structure since January of 2004 -- 2003, excuse me. So they've had quite a
lot of work going on in the four years and this is in January 2007, retracting
in preparation for payload delivery to the pad. And here we are, back in the
Space Station Processing Facility, preparing the S3/S4 element for transfer
out to the launch pad, lifting it out of its workstand and it's on its way to the
opposite end of the building where we will install it in the payload
transportation canister for the trip to the pad. This is a good shot of the
forward bulkhead of the S3 bulkhead that will attach to S1 on orbit. And
now, as you can see, we're approaching the payload canister for that
installation. And lowering the cargo element into the payload canister. And
that's a close-up shot of the solar-alpha rotary joint there, blanketed. That's
the joint that rotates the solar arrays outboard for tracking with the sun. And
here we are, over at the Canister Rotation Facility. We've been rotated
vertical in the payload canister and we're on our way out to the launch pad.
This is Feb. 12 of this year. There's a beautiful shot of the canister as it
passes the Vehicle Assembly Building in the early morning hours of Feb. 12.
And I love this view here, with the launch pad lit up in the early morning
hours. And this is the payload canister being hoisted up from the base of the
pad to the Payload Changeout Room at the 135-foot level of the rotating
service structure. And now we're seeing, we're inside the Payload
Changeout Room and opening the payload canister doors in preparation for
extracting the S3/S4 element and putting it into the Payload Changeout
Room. And I don't believe we have it on this video, but the shot that you're
seeing here looks very much like the S3/S4 in the orbiter's payload bay.
Those doors that you see there look, are very similar to the payload bay
doors for the orbiter. That's a close-up shot of one of the solar array wings,
the two blanket boxes that you see there in the mass canister, and this is the
top half of the S3 element with the solar alpha rotary joint. And now we're
seeing the payload ground handling mechanism being brought forward to
extract the S3/S4 element out of the payload canister, and that has occurred
now and the payload canister door is closed.
DILLER: Robbie, what's the significance of the payloads for this mission in
terms of where it fits into the assembly sequence? In other words, why are
we doing this now compared to what's coming?
ASHLEY: Right. Well, the S3/S4 element's very much like the P3/P4 that
we launched back in September of last year. Its primary purpose is, is that it
provides power for the station. Significant of the S3/S4 element is it'll be
providing the power necessary to continue the assembly of station and
specifically starting the addition of the international partner elements – the
Columbus module and the Japanese Experiment Module. So it's significant
in that it will be providing the power for those elements.
DILLER: Well, Robbie, thank you very much, and I'm sure your team is
excited. Have you any estimate about how many folks have worked over this
over time or are on your team?
ASHLEY: You know, I don't have a good number. I know it's in the
thousands if you consider, you know, going back to, all the way back to the
plants where the hardware was initially manufactured and then the team
here. We've had a large number of folks that have worked on it. Some have
gone on to other things. As I mentioned earlier, it's been over six years. But,
but a lot of folks are looking out at the launch pad today with excitement that
S3/S4 is now on the verge of being launched and headed to the space station.
Well Robbie, thanks very much and best of luck for tonight.