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Shuttle Columbia's Future Uncertain
By Todd Halvorson
Cape Canaveral Bureau Chief
posted: 07:00 am ET
10 April 2001
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shuttle_columbia_future CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Twenty years after it flew NASAs first shuttle flight, NASAs oldest orbiter is a spaceship in search of a mission.Fresh off a $70 million tune-up that sidelined it for 18 months, shuttle Columbia remains too heavy to cart hefty cargoes to the International Space Station, so sister ships Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour will be flying all NASA outpost construction missions.[quote] What's more, little else is scheduled for the $8 billion shuttle fleet during the next five years and, as a result, Columbia is facing a dearth of work that has NASA officials wondering how to make use of an extraordinarily capable spacecraft. "Ive been thinking a lot about that lately," said NASA shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore. "Just how are we going to use Columbia in light of the fact that most of our flights will be station-type assembly missions and visits?" Good question. But unfortunately, there is no solid answer. As it stands now, Columbia has but a few firm missions on the books: servicing mission now scheduled for launch in late November or early December. Seven astronauts on that flight will outfit NASAs flagship orbital observatory with new science instruments and replace worn-out telescope components. A space research mission now slated to blast off in April 2002. On that flight, dozens of science experiments are to be carried out by astronauts working in a pressurized cargo bay module built by the commercial firm Spacehab Inc.The venerable spaceship also was booked to fly an orbital drop-test with a NASA space station crew rescue vehicle (CRV), but prospects for that mission are a bit iffy. The CRV project recently was put on indefinite hold as part of an effort to absorb an anticipated $4 billion space station cost overrun.Columbia also will fly a fourth and final servicing mission to the Hubble telescope in late 2003, but beyond that, plans for the orbiter largely are unclear. Among the possibilities: The shuttle fleet flew nine dedicated missions for the Department of Defense between 1985 and 1993, dispatching a series of top-secret satellites while astronauts carried out clandestine Pentagon chores in orbit. High-level NASA and Pentagon officials currently are talking about the possibility of staging future military missions aboard Columbia. "Those discussions are ongoing, and whether theyre going to conclude in a month or six months or a year, I cant say," Dittemore said. "Its really premature for me to say anything more than that." - Missions to deploy future
planetary spacecraft --Dittemore said shuttle program officials are talking with counterparts at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to see if Columbia might serve as an orbital launch pad for robotic spacecraft heading out on solar system exploration missions. The delivery of garden-variety commercial communications satellites once was a mainstay for the shuttle fleet, but then-President Reagan signed an executive order banning such cargo from shuttle flights eight months after the January 1986 Challenger accident.That executive order would have to be rescinded -- and similar congressional legislation would have to be overturned for Columbia to take on commercial missions in the future. - Extended station visits --
Columbia might be too weighty to haul large cargoes to the station, but NASA is looking at the possibility of sending it up to the outpost for three- to four-week stays at the complex. That would give researchers a place to camp in the absence of a U.S. crew habitation module at the station, another victim of recent budget cuts.- Columbia as a flying test-bed --
NASA over the next several years plans to replace outdated shuttle components with higher-technology systems, and officials are pondering the possibility of using Columbia as a flying testbed. The idea would be to outfit Columbia with new systems so they can be flight-proven before installation in the remainder of the fleet. Said Dittemore: "I think thats a definite possibility." But its not a certainty. While Columbias future is ambiguous at best, this much is sure: ~ A veteran of 26 flights and 224 days in space, the recently refurbished Columbia now sports NASAs most advanced shuttle cockpit and weighs 1,000 pounds (455 kilograms) less than it did before it went into rehab in the fall of 1999.Wiring used to gather flight data during its first four missions was stripped from the ship, and another 190 miles (305 kilometers) of cabling was inspected -- and protected -- to avoid the type of electrical short that crashed two engine computers on its last flight in July 1999. Its sturdy airframe was examined, its various systems were checked out and in what amounts to an insurance policy purchase, NASA wired it up for the type of cargo bay airlock that would be required should the agency ever need to send it to the station. "Columbia is a leaner, meaner machine as it comes back," Dittemore said, adding that the ship "is fit to fly for many more years." Veteran astronaut John Young, who commanded NASAs inaugural shuttle flight, agreed. "Columbia has gotten better as its gotten older. Its gone from test flights to do things we once never dreamed we could do," he said. Dittemore, meanwhile, thinks the scarcity of work for Columbia is a short-term situation. "I think there are payloads out there in the future, in the next three or four years, that would certainly be benefited by using the space shuttles capability," he said. "Certainly, I think the lull is only going to be for a few years." Only time will tell.
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