Artifact Category: cue card.
Date of use: 1993.
Manufacturer: NASA
Materials: cardboard, Velcro.
Dimensions: 18.2 x 20.4 cm
Program: Space Shuttle
Mission: STS-56
Flown Status: unflown.
Description: 7"x 8" heavy card Contingency Abort and RTLS cue card used in training by Ken Cameron for his STS-56 mission. It comes with a signed COA from him.
Flown Status: unflown.
Description: 7"x 8" heavy card Contingency Abort and RTLS cue card used in training by Ken Cameron for his STS-56 mission. It comes with a signed COA from him.
Once the shuttle's SRBs were ignited, the vehicle was committed to liftoff. If an event requiring an abort happened after SRB ignition, it was not possible to begin the abort until after SRB burnout and separation, about two minutes after launch. There were five abort modes available during ascent, divided into the categories of intact aborts and contingency aborts.
The RTLS abort mode was never needed in the history of the shuttle program. It was considered the most difficult and dangerous abort, but also among the most unlikely to occur as only a very narrow range of probable failures existed that were survivable but nevertheless so time-critical as to rule out more time-consuming abort modes.
STS-56 was the 56th mission of the United States Space Shuttle program and the 10th flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission was launched on April 8, 1993, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a crew of five astronauts led by Commander Kenneth Cameron.
The main objective of the mission was to carry out a series of scientific experiments in microgravity. The payload included the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS-2), which was a collection of instruments designed to study the Earth's atmosphere and its interactions with the sun.
During the 9-day mission, the crew conducted a total of 81 experiments, which included observations of the Earth's ozone layer, the effects of solar radiation on the atmosphere, and the behavior of fluids in microgravity. They also tested a new device called the Active Rack Isolation System (ARIS), which was designed to reduce the amount of vibration experienced by sensitive experiments on board the shuttle.
In addition to the scientific experiments, the crew also performed a number of technical and maintenance tasks, including the deployment and retrieval of a small satellite called the Spartan 201, and the testing of new thermal protection materials for the shuttle's heat shield.
STS-56 landed on April 17, 1993 at the Kennedy Space Center.
