LCROSS Flight Director's Blog
- 2009
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Here is the list of entries for LCROSS Flight Director's Blog based on the selected criteria.
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What Happened on Impact Night?
Dec 16, 2009 06:22:17 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Many observers were puzzled by the events of the LCROSS impact, especially the details of the NASA TV impact video. In this post, Payload Engineer Mark Shirley, who oversaw payload operation on impact night, explains what happened. Beyond the video, he provides some great insight into real-time science operations, and the engineering challenges of making things work when there's no second chance.
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Recap of the Final Day,Part 1: Separation and Braking Burn
Dec 02, 2009 06:38:38 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- With the LCROSS flight over, I'd like to close the LCROSS Flight Director's Blog with a few more posts relating our experiences in the final day of our mission. This post covers Shift A's last experiences on console, and my last shift as Flight Director. Our team commanded Separation, the final nudge to accurately target the Centaur, and the Braking Burn, to set up the Shepherd for its front-row view of Impact.
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Brace for Impact! A Schedule of Events for the Final Day
Oct 08, 2009 02:53:34 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Our last day in flight promises to be the most challenging and the most rewarding for the project. Our 112 days in orbit are focused entirely on the last four minutes following the Centaur impact. During your day tomorrow, I thought it might be fun for you to know what the Flight Team will be doing in lead-up to the event. Here's some late-breaking news about TCM 9, and a schedule of events for the final day.
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Farewell LCROSS
Oct 07, 2009 05:02:46 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Our team has been working at full-bore for 3+ years, ultimately to achieve the impact that may expose water at the lunar south pole, but also that leads to the demise of the LCROSS spacecraft. In this post, my guest blogger Jen Heldmann, LCROSS Observation Campaign Coordinator and Science Team member, reflects on this journey, and what lies beyond the impact on October 9.
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Our Centaur: Launch Vehicle Upper Stage Turned Lunar Impactor
Oct 07, 2009 04:21:16 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Delivered by the LCROSS spacecraft, our Centaur upper stage will cause the main impact plume that we'll observe to determine whether water exists on the moon. In this posting my guest Chuck Tatro, the NASA Launch Program Mission Manager for LRO and LCROSS, describes this very important component, the ideas that went into its design, and why it's the right way to look for water at the lunar south pole.
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Once More Around the Earth: September 4 - October 5
Oct 05, 2009 03:29:20 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The anomaly robbed the LCROSS Flight Team of precious time to prepare for Impact. But with a healthy spacecraft, and enough propellant to do the job, our team was all too happy to prepare for the future. This post describes our final orbit around Earth, and our final preparations for Impact.
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A Test of the Flight Team: The Near-Loss and Full Recovery of LCROSS
Oct 04, 2009 08:25:57 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Early in the second half of our second Earth orbit, while out of DSN contact, LCROSS experienced an anomaly that caused it to consume a large amount of its propellant. We spent the remainder of our second orbit recovering from that anomaly, and protecting against any future excessive propellant usage. LCROSS emerged healthy, but with very little margin for error in the final orbit before lunar impact.
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During Our Second Trip Around Earth: August 1 - August 22
Sep 28, 2009 08:18:13 AM | System User
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- With our first orbit around the Earth behind us, the Flight Team team looked optimistically ahead to a number of upcoming events, including two science instrument calibrations, and two Trajectory Correction Maneuvers, TCM 5b and 5c. Thankfully for us, the schedule of planned events for the next 34 days promised to be a little more relaxed than for the previous 42 days.
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Our First Orbit Around the Earth: June 23 - July 30
Sep 22, 2009 02:45:06 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Our first trip around the Earth was packed with activity. Having just completed Lunar Swingby, the team mitigated our initial spacecraft issues, settled into a slightly less busy DSN contact schedule, then set to the task of baking water from the Centaur exterior, and performing our largest Trajectory Correction Maneuver.
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Introduction to Cruise Phase
Jul 22, 2009 01:02:40 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Between Transfer Phase and Impact Phase is the longest, but least well-understood phase of the LCROSS mission – Cruise Phase. It's been the hardest part of the mission to communicate, so I offer this introduction to Cruise Phase as a primer for future posts on our latest activities.
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Lunar Swingby: Development of a Procedure
Jul 13, 2009 06:29:15 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- All of you keeping up with LCROSS have undoubtedly already heard the good news – that our team at NASA Ames successfully performed our capstone event on Day 5 of the mission – the Lunar Swingby. In execution, it worked just as we had hoped. But getting it to work wasn’t easy. In this post, I’d like to walk you through the evolution of the procedures and command sequences that we ultimately flew on Day 5.
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Multi-Tasking: Day 4
Jun 26, 2009 04:00:44 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The challenge of the LCROSS mission in the first week is to maintain the fast pace of the nominal mission plan, all while trying to find operational workarounds to the problems we've discovered. On Day 4 we successfully planned and executed TCM 3 and the Star Field Calibration, and also developed and tested candidate strategies for keeping our thrusters warm. All in a (long) days' work!
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Real-Life Operations: Day 3
Jun 23, 2009 02:08:38 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- A Flight Team truly justifies its existence when a spacecraft doesn't behave the way it should. Yesterday, the LCROSS team was investigating a number of smaller problematic behaviors, many of which were being retired as "signatures" of the design. However, one issue emerged as the most important, and our team spent most of today working on it. We're getting our first taste of real on-orbit problem solving experience...
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First Step and First Glance: Day 2
Jun 20, 2009 06:23:11 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- LCROSS reached two important milestones on Day 2 today - first, it successfully conducted its first Trajectory Correction Maneuver. Our first independent step after being pushed out of the figurative nest. It followed by opening its eyes for the first time with payload "Quicklook". As the Earth gets smaller and the Moon gets bigger, LCROSS continues to behave very well.
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Fly Me to the Moon
Jun 19, 2009 05:48:28 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- Today was truly a thrill - uncertainty until the final minutes as heavy weather passed through the Cape, and then a clearing for our final opportunity of the day. Launch was beautiful, and as Flight Director for the first shift of the flight, I can say that the spacecraft is operating well so far! We're on our way to a near-encounter with the moon on Tuesday at just about 4 AM Pacific.
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First Shot
Jun 18, 2009 03:36:31 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- LCROSS's first launch opportunity is June 18. We went to bed last night thinking Shuttle would launch, and if they didn't, we'd be scheduled for June 19. Surprise, surprise! Our team mobilized today to get everything ready for our first shot at the moon. This, and one of my readers suggested a great idea - to have people look for the gas plume vented by our Centaur upper stage before it cedes control to LCROSS.
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A Window Into LCROSS
Jun 16, 2009 01:16:29 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The launch window for LCROSS opens this week. Starting Thursday, June 18, LCROSS has a shot at the Moon. As Space Shuttle and LRO/LCROSS negotiate their launch schedules, the LCROSS Flight Team is really anxious to get started.
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Lessons Learned: A Recap of First Week Rehearsal
Jun 05, 2009 03:49:34 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The LCROSS First Week Rehearsal was all it was cooked up to be. With a fully realistic operations timeline, long hours, and a representative dose of problems inserted by our beloved Test Conductor, “FWR” was all-consuming.
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First Week Rehearsal
May 27, 2009 04:18:42 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The single best preparation for space mission operations is to practice whenever possible. The LCROSS Flight Team has been rehearsing various mission events for 14 months. But this week, we’ll hold the largest, most realistic and most difficult rehearsal in LCROSS development – the First Week Rehearsal.
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LCROSS Flight Team Breakdown
May 25, 2009 05:18:53 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- My last post contrasted flying LCROSS from flying an airplane, in touchy-feely terms, but now it’s time for some detail. This post provides describes the makeup and specific responsibilities of the Flight Team.
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Flying LCROSS vs. Flying a Plane
May 25, 2009 05:13:20 AM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- What is it like to “fly” a spacecraft? Is it anything like flying an airplane? For LCROSS, truthfully, no. In this post, I contrast flying a spacecraft with piloting, and flying LCROSS with flying spacecraft around other planets.
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Our last view of LCROSS
May 16, 2009 05:46:56 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- LCROSS and LRO were finally encapsulated in the Atlas V payload fairing. For most of us, it was the last time we'll see LCROSS.
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Correction
May 16, 2009 04:08:48 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- A couple of readers brought an error to my attention regarding the Atlas V engines.
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What is a Flight Director?
May 13, 2009 05:31:34 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- In my first post, I mentioned that I serve as the LCROSS Flight Team Lead and as one of two Flight Directors. So, what does that mean??
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Welcome
May 10, 2009 07:54:43 PM | Paul.D Tompkins
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- The first installment of the LCROSS Flight Blog
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