the space shuttle flight control system called pass

#The space shuttle flight control system called pass skin#
#The space shuttle flight control system called pass full#

This high-quality, low-noise imagery is closely examined by NASA screeners for artifacts that did not exist on the shuttle before lift off.

#The space shuttle flight control system called pass full#

This is to help the screeners avoid information overload, while ensuring that full inspection coverage is maintained.Īnother ground station product is generated by registering multiple contiguous frames together into a single sharpened image. When the level 1 images are delivered to NASA, the total number of frames is reduced by a factor of four, Mark says. The first product, called level 1, is the imagery corrected for transmission line artifacts incurred, and for fixed pattern noise, which is called flat field correction. The Sandia team staffed four workstations, which captured the down-linked data and provided various types of products for the NASA screening teams. The sensor generates images of 720 by 480 pixels, at 30 Hz, which are transmitted to the Space Center. The operation is repeated just before the shuttle returns to earth, in case the shuttle was impacted by micrometeorites or space debris while on orbit. Approximately three hours of video is acquired.

On flight day two after liftoff, the LDRI sensor is used in a series of multiple pass scans of the leading edges of both wings of the shuttle and of the nose cap. “In the spirit of doing everything possible to aid the NASA screeners, the Sandia ground station team processed the NASA data and provided them with improved, high-quality imagery that helped NASA make the decision to return the shuttle to earth,” says team member Mark Heying (2624).

#The space shuttle flight control system called pass skin#

Mission control decided to do a quick inspection of the shuttle’s skin using NASA’s in-house video camera. During each of the three space shuttle flights since the Columbia disaster, the Sandia Laser Dynamic Range Imager (LDRI) sensor has been used to help ensure that the shuttle’s thermal protection system is intact before the spacecraft returns to earth.ĭuring the latest Atlantis mission nearly two dozen Sandians served as the ground station team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center near Houston, Texas.ĭuring the flight while preparing for reentry, astronauts saw several unidentified objects floating in space nearby.