STS-107 Daily Science Report
January 23
SOFBALL test points 03A and 08A were
completed successfully. Test point 03A produced one flame ball
that lasted 345 seconds. A reburn attempt produced no additional
flame balls. Test point 08A produced two flame balls on the first
ignition attempt and one flame ball on the second ignition attempt.
SOFBALL-2 test points 14A and 02A were completed successfully.
Test point 14A produced one flame ball that lasted 1200 seconds,
as compared to the maximum flame ball lifetime of 500 seconds
during the flight of SOBALL-1 in 1997. The flame ball power was
about 0.5 Watts, less than any SOFBALL-1 test, which might make
this the weakest flame ever burned in space or on Earth. A reburn
attempt produced one flame ball that lasted only 5 seconds. Test
point 02A produced three, two and two flame balls on three ignition
attempts.
The Laminar Soot Processes-2 (LSP-2)
Principal Investigator (PI) Gerard Faeth noted that “tests
carried out by the astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia over
the last five days have yielded very valuable results – exceeding
my most optimistic hopes for the study!” The recent tests
with the smallest nozzle were designed to provide a higher aspect
ratio (length/width), which provides the best “paradigm flames.”
Paradigm flames have nearly constant soot production in any flow
direction, just like turbulent flames on Earth. The crew has done
an excellent job with the small nozzle configuration, quickly
responding after flame blow-offs. The preliminary results from
STS-107 promise new approaches to the design of sootless flames,
thus eliminating soot-caused health and safety hazards.
The Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment
(OARE) data downlink path is now working. The payload recorder
capacity is insufficient to store all uncompressed OARE data on-board
during the mission (although a set of compressed data is being
stored), so the Ku-band downlink is needed. The OARE downlink
during the mission is useful to the science teams for analyzing
the effects of acceleration events on experiment data.
The OARE acceleration data are being provided to the SOFBALL experiment,
which the science team is using to correlate with their science
data. The downlink was switched from one Tracking and Data Relay
Satellite System (TDRSS) to another and is now working well. Even
when the downlink was not working properly, OARE was storing compressed
data (not full data) for the entire SOFBALL timeline. This compressed
data should satisfy the PI's requirements.
SAMS-FF is supporting ongoing SOFBALL
test points on a 24-hour basis. PIMS has been providing data acceleration
analysis to SOFBALL before and after each test point for the science
team to use in correlating the science results.
Mission Status Reports
January
31, 2003
January 30, 2003
January 29, 2003
January 28, 2003
January 27, 2003
January 26, 2003
January 25, 2003
January 24, 2003
January 23, 2003
January 22, 2003
January 21, 2003
January 20, 2003
