Published 2025-05-12 · Duration 2:05 · Video file(7.7 MB)
Discussion on the failure of a tether deployed during STS-75, which had been previously deployed on STS-46. The crew and controllers were disappointed as the system
Transcript
In this view, looking up toward the satellite now, the satellite almost one mile distant from Columbia. This view now showing the tip of the boom. This is Mission Control Houston. And this view of the end of the remaining amount of tether. This is Mission Control Houston. This view is of the end of the tether, the end of about 10 meters or so, roughly 30 to 33 feet of tether that's believed is still out in Columbia's cargo bay, the tether large. And Jeff, we're tracking it with the radar, and we do read zero tension. What had started out as a normal deployment of TSS ended in disappointment for Columbia's astronauts and flight controllers as the system monitoring the satellite lost all data and the flight crew watched as TSS and its curled tethers sped away from the shuttle. This is Michael Cabbage with Florida Today and my question is for Mr. McBrayer. According to the manufacturer, there was a spare tether in addition to the one that was hung up on STS-46 and snapped yesterday. What was the reasoning behind flying the same tether twice when you have a spare one that had never been used? We had a qualification tether that we had been using in ground testing, quite a lot of ground testing. We felt like the flight tether was in good shape. We took off the 300 meters that we had used during the first mission and felt that the flight tether had fewer cycles on it than the qualification tether that we had in the test setup. Was there ever any consideration or any discussion about flying the spare tether? Not to my knowledge.