The STS-133 humpy bumpy ride and crummy docking situation!

Space Shuttle Discovery burnt!

ok /// on with the small report of STS-133 docking to ISS Station!

We will call this day 1

|<< !! .. A Day in the life of Betty Donelly normally i would've started out my post which would look like so ..

2:08 PM on Sunday 27 February

All is quiet around the world but there has been some radicom goin on between two flight officers i think or summin .. When i opened my audio and videolines the previous afternoon i immediately saw what was going on ... The shuttle was already nearin the capture device rod when i saw what went wrong with the docking manouver

the shuttle was way off course in its trajectory towards the capture thing, both vertically and horizontally ...and the shuttle was coming in way too fast and it was bound to be some kinda humpie bumpie contact ....

so next thing i know Capcom throws in some audio and after some desperate thrust manouvers to correct the incoming angle ... The shuttle was actually docked and they were at step 6 i think .. They tried in vain to open the station hatch but to no avail ... orders came in to detach the shuttle from the station again and do the free floating thing ...

you see, the actual worries were actually due to turbulence or summin ... or gravity .. well that's what they said afterwards anyways ... that it was due to gravity .. Now they had a problem inside the station trying to open the hatch .. musta had summin to do with the pressure outside and inside the shutlle .. then it was said that during launch the shuttle got burnt and everything ...

it was a wild ride into orbit!

but the immediate concern was that they possibly woul'nt be able to open the hatch within the timeline .. in the mean time i saw them red fumes and some blue and yella and orange and ... hm ... burnt you know .. burning red! ... it's summin to do with relative motions .. i saw the colours moving fast and then they had to calm down those relative (E) motions ....

this is don' by moving flaps and then slowly moving those flaps to settle down the colour waves ... but it's the nose of the shutlle that's docked and there were no flaps at the stations's end so we all had to wait till the relative motions had somewhat died down from lotsa red blue yella and green to green in particular and then that's how it it worked ... we just had to wait it out for a real long time .. once the trouble with the relative motions were over there was there was a serious issue opening the hatch ....

so now from inside the station they tried to open the first inside cover ... but summin was wrong so they had to improvise real quick .. So they took some triangular shaped thing to block the handles of the in side cover of the hatch .. more time went by as we were having the trouble ...

they was a real problem i think with the air tightness ... you know ... i bet summin was wrong with the pressure ... but i believe it was the pressure between the shuttle and the hatch vestibule .. (a vestibule is the opening inside between the shuttle hatch and the station hatch) ..

so when they finally got the go ahead for the opening of the hatch from inside the station ... i immediately noticed summin funny .. the shuttle that had been docking from a too low an angle in its trajectory was now docked after attempt number 2 .. yes ... when i told you about the humpy bumpy docking ride they had to release the shutlle from hte station again so the shuttle and the station were free floatin for a while and the second time they got docked all right but now that the inner cover as seen from inside the station was open i saw the vestibule and behind that i could clearly see the shuttle opening was way low .. i could already imagine that the shuttle crew would have to climb their way up and through the vestibule and lo and behold ...

after another wait of some precious time the go ahead was given for the crew to come on board of the station ... they couldn't make it on their own though so it was a real acrobatic feat and they got help from the station crew to get them all the way up and through the vestibule but everyone made it in all right ... the warm welcome that's part of the tradition was seriously delayed but finally the time had come for the hugging part but there was summin real fishy goin on! ..

when the two crews finally were united inside the station there was summin missin real bad ... it's also part of the tradition for Houston Ground Control to get a free moment to vent their success by cheering and applauding and such ... but this time i heard nuffin of any of that .... i think it meant we weren't out of the worries yet ... the crew was preppin for the official ceremony to be broadcast onto the media on the Ground ... and the ceremony was held, way overdue in time for sure but the shuttle launch and docking, the crew getting inside the station ... you know ... that' s what the delay was all about! ç!!>> ...

i didn't realise it yet at day 3 but now we are at day 7 (since the docking) and it totally altered my life ... im in a situation were there's no turning back and from what i can make up from all the data there's trouble underway ... please everyone ... be safe and take good good care ... Betty out ..

Please feel free to distribute the URL link of this post .. i posted it originally on my Betty Donelly Official Blog .. link follows

http://bettydonelly.blogspot.com

Light and Love

Betty Donelly