Overview
First Space Shuttle test flight 25 years ago was an American Engineering Triumph
NASA and its industry team celebrated the 25th anniversary of the most challenging test flight in its history. This occasion marks the first development flight of the Space Shuttle on April 12, 1981, a spacecraft that broke from using capsule based designs to the world's first reusable winged spacecraft, and the first spacecraft in history that could carry large satellites to and from orbit.
The Space Shuttle launches like a rocket, maneuvers in Earth orbit like a spacecraft and lands like a glider. Today, the Space Shuttle with its huge 60 by 15 foot payload bay is essential to completing assembly of the International Space Station, and may even service the Hubble Space Telescope one last time before it is retired in 2010.
NASA administrator Michael Griffin calls the Space Shuttle "the most amazing machine humans have ever built, and it has been the recipient of the most brilliant engineering that America can provide."
Rockwell International received the prime contract to develop the fleet of orbiters. Rocketdyne, then a part of Rockwell, received the task of developing the three main engines -- the first reusable liquid fueled rocket engines. In December 1996, Boeing purchased the aerospace and defense units of Rockwell International. Martin Marretta, now Lockheed Martin, built the External Tank, which carried the fuel for the three main shuttle engines. Morton Thiokol, now part of Alliant Techsystems, built the two strap-on solid rocket boosters which produced more than six million pounds of thrust. McDonnell Douglas provided the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) pods on Columbia.
Rockwell was awarded the contract on July 26, 1972 to design and build Columbia, which was rolled out of Air Force Plant 42 at the Palmdale, Calif., assembly facility on March 8, 1979. On Dec. 29, 1980, Columbia, the first of the five operational orbiters, was rolled out to the launch pad for the first time at Kennedy Space Center.
Rockwell built the aft fuselage and crew module at its facility in Downey, Calif. Most of the design work for the orbiter was also done at Downey. "We had a gradual buildup of the workforce. When NASA released the contract for the shuttle, we had to get the facilities ready, and then the people, and before manufacturing even set foot on the floor, we had to get the design out," said Dan Brown, Rockwell's vice president of production operations for the Space Shuttle who was responsible for Downey and Palmdale manufacturing. The manufacturing workforce numbered almost 2,500 employees.
"The design took about 18 months and we subcontracted a lot of the work to outside major vendors," said Brown. Grumman built the wings in New York, General Dynamics built the mid fuselage in San Diego, and Fairchild in New York built the tail. Once the design was finalized, Rockwell took about three years to assemble the orbiter. Once assembly was complete, Rockwell did an integrated checkout before the orbiter was flown on a Boeing 747 to Kennedy Space Center.
Seymour "Sy" Rubenstein
Seymour "Sy" Rubenstein was Rockwell's chief engineer in 1978 and eventually ran the entire Rockwell Space Shuttle program. Rubinstein, who passed away in February, remembered the challenges of building Columbia and the first flight in an interview in 2003. "I remember when I started on the program I asked myself is it possible to do this thing? But what we did was just focus on one year at a time. We had a bunch of things to get done every year," Rubenstein said.
The Space Shuttle was designed and built in eight years and Rubenstein said a good plan and outstanding people were key. "The parts of the Shuttle system that we worked on -- the Orbiter parts -- were pretty much designed and delivered within program cost constraints," he said.
The first Space Shuttle test flight had some significant risks since NASA did not have the benefit of an earlier unmanned test flights like it had done with Apollo. "The people who flew that really were quite courageous because there was no guarantee. We had done everything we knew how to prior to flight, but STS-1 opened the door," Rubenstein said. The mission tested performance, the payload doors and other systems on orbit, which worked perfectly during the flight. "I can't think of any major change we made to the vehicle that was revolutionary in every nature. I think almost all the changes were evolutionary," Rubenstein said.
The orbiter's heat resistant tiles were a new invention. There were some problems following delivery to Kennedy Space Center and a NASA-led national team was formed to look at the problem. " When attached, the tile to the vehicle was breaking at a point where we didn't understand why it was breaking. Then somebody finally figured out by looking at an electron microscope was that the strands (in the tiles) were breaking. It was like all the load was being carried in these pillars. What we did was put a thin plate of cement on the bottom so the pillars went into the plate of cement. So the stress wasn't in each of the individual strands and was now spread out," he explained. Unfortunately, about two-thirds of the orbiter was done with the old method of installing the tiles and it took about a year, according to Rubenstein, to change out the tiles.
Another innovation on the Space Shuttle was the avionics system. "The real secret in the avionics was we had complete control of the total vehicle. Everything that was on that vehicle went through the computer system except for dropping the landing gear," said Rubenstein.
Dwight Woolhouse, then a subsystem manager for the aero surface mechanisms like the rudder/speedbrake and body flap actuation systems, and the other mechanical systems, including payload door, radiator deployment actuation and other mechanical systems on the Orbiter supported the flight at a console in the Downey Mission Support Room during the mission, "We were watching all the position sensors on orbit for the payload doors to make sure everything was proper, then seeing the aero surfaces become active as the vehicle prepared to land. All of those systems performed perfectly on that first flight," he said. Woolhouse, who started on the shuttle program in 1972, continues to support the Space Shuttle program as the associate program director for obiter development. He remembers the launch and landing as being a very emotional experience for everyone who participated in it.
Rubenstein remembered waiting for the Space Shuttle to land at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "Until we heard the first sounds of the crew coming out of blackout, it was a little delay, and until you hear them answer the calls to Houston no matter who you are, you're nervous," he said.
NASA and its industry team can be proud of its accomplishment in designing and building its most versatile and longest flying spacecraft ever. The first flight launched one of the most unique and complex spacecraft ever assembled and initiated the incredible series of human space flights that make up the record of success that the Space Shuttle has built.