Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Space Shuttle Columbia Blasts Off Towards Hubble Space Telescope

Aired March 01, 2002 - 06:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting close now, Miles, just minutes away from the Space Shuttle Columbia blasting off, at least we think so.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Well not to be too precise, but one minute and 10 seconds away and counting. The countdown looking good right now, the weather good. The Space Shuttle Columbia on the launch pad there. You see that big broad shot as the sun begins to come up here at the Kennedy Space Center. We're inside one minute on this, the fourth Hubble repair mission.

The Space Shuttle Columbia just a month shy of its 21st anniversary, the first space shuttle launch (UNINTELLIGIBLE) John Young and Bob Crippen. The old gray lady, just coming back from a two-and-a-half year renovation period, on its way to do some renovating on the Hubble Space Telescope.

They will be there to install new solar arrays, a new gyroscope, a new camera and a new power control unit, which will mean for the first time in 12 years the Hubble will be unplugged. Five aggressive spacewalks. The crew says they're ready. The commander, Scooter Altman, saying let's launch them.

Let's listen to George Diller, Public Affair's Officer here at the Kennedy Space Center as the countdown enters 15 seconds.

GEORGE DILLER, PUBLIC AFFAIR'S OFFICER, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER: Three, two, one and liftoff of Space Shuttle Columbia to broaden our view of the universe through the Hubble Space Telescope.

ROB NAVY (ph), JOHNSON SPACE CENTER: Houston now controlling the flight of Columbia. The pioneer shuttle headed for the Hubble Space Telescope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) program.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger. Roll Columbia.

NAVY: Columbia into the roll, placing the shuttle in a heads down, wings level position for the eight-and-a-half minute ride to orbit.

The 25 seconds of the flight, Columbia's three (UNINTELLIGIBLE) main engines now throttling back in a three-step fashion to 72 percent of rated performance, reducing the stress on the shuttle as it breaks through the sound barrier. Already two miles in altitude, one-and-a- half miles down range, leaving an incandescent trail behind it. Columbia headed for Hubble. Hubble almost directly over the Cape at this moment. Three engines now throttling down, soon to throttle back up to 104 percent of rated performance. The main engines, along with the three fuel cells and three...

O'BRIEN: Listening to the voice of Rob Navy is -- who is at Johnson Space Center in Houston as we continue one minute into the flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. This, it's 27th flight, the 108th shuttle mission. A spectacular sight as it illuminated the clouds.

Continuing the first two minutes of this mission, the solid rocket boosters, which do about 80 percent of the work in getting the space shuttle to orbit, remain on board. They will be jettisoned right at about the two minute point. That's a key moment in the flight of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It'll be an eight-and-a-half minute launch from the pad all the way into space. We're now about 20 seconds away from that moment in time. Up until that point, the crew has very few options for an abort scenario because those solid rocket boosters are glorified roman candles. Once you light them, there's no way to turn hem off.

We're now about seven seconds away from that. And we'll watch as those solid rocket boosters sort of flame out a little bit, as you begin to see now, and then they will begin their descent from about 110,000 feet down to the water that -- where they'll be retrieved by vessels used by NASA to do just that. They'll be refurbished. Solid rocket booster separation, which is an important point in this ascent.

Two minutes and 19 seconds into it, the space shuttle now operating just on its three main engines with that orange fuel tank fueling those engines with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. About six minutes before they'll be in space, before they reach that moment of zero G, they will experience about three Gs or three times their normal weight.

Look at that spectacular shot, Carol. As we look at a wide shot here at the Kennedy Space Center, they're sort of just at dawn as Columbia begins her 27th mission, this Hubble repair mission. The fourth sortie to Hubble to refurbish it -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Miles, you just never get tired of looking at that. It was quite a beautiful sight. Wow! The...

O'BRIEN: It is -- it is a beautiful sight.

COSTELLO: The astronauts aboard the space shuttle, this is a really exciting mission for them. One of the astronauts was quoted as saying he is an "unabashed Hubble hugger." Why do they -- why are they so excited about this particular mission?

O'BRIEN: Well this is an important mission because the Hubble -- I can't think of a better comeback story, can you? The Hubble, when it launched in 1990, literally became an icon for failure. It was launched with that terrible flaw in it which caused it to see in a blurry manner.

In December of '93 there was that important mission, they went up and essentially put corrective optics on it, prescription glasses, if you will, and ever since then it has been rewriting the astronomy books. We know more about how old the universe it, how it is expanding, how it may be accelerating. We have seen stars at their birth. We have seen galaxies at their earliest formation. We've seen back to inside one billion years after the big bang because Hubble can look that far out. It's proven the fact that there are not only black holes but black holes are all over the universe.

So if you're into astronomy, this is truly a golden age. And the opportunity to work on it for some of these astronauts is a great opportunity. The person that said that, Don Grumself (ph), is a national (ph) physicist, self-abashed astronomy geek I guess.

COSTELLO: That's right, he is an astronomer.

O'BRIEN: And he's a happy guy.

COSTELLO: Yes, they're going to stay up there...

O'BRIEN: Yes, he's a happy guy.

COSTELLO: They're going to stay up there for 11 days. And I liked what you were describing to us about the big lazy Susan on top of the space shuttle, correct me if I'm wrong, and they're going to put the Hubble Telescope on top of that and then attach the new lens or camera. Explain that to us.

O'BRIEN: Let me -- let me give you a quick little routine here with our low tech models here. This, courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute where they actually take care of the Hubble's scientific mission.

The Shuttle Columbia will creep up this way underneath. Scott Altman, the commander, did the stunt flying for "Top Gun." It'll test his mettle there as he creeps up at less than a foot per minute. And then it will hover there at about 35 feet giving the robot arm operator, this 50-foot robotic arm operated by Nancy Curry (ph), an opportunity to attach to a grapple point, as they call it, and park the Hubble, $6 billion telescope, right there on this thing that's a lazy Susan. And then they can spin it around, depending on which bay they're working on. They can actually tilt it. They can do all kinds of things, and they can plug it in and give it some power. So it's set up as a great work platform. It's sort of a mobile garage, if you will, for a telescope.

COSTELLO: And you're making it sound easy, but this is not easy. This involves very difficult spacewalks, too, to get that thing -- to get whatever parts they're putting on to it on to the Hubble Telescope.

O'BRIEN: Well you know the key is on this thing you have five full spacewalks. That's never been tried before, five full ones. They did four and a half on the first Hubble mission when they fixed the optics. But the key is that third spacewalk when they're going to take out -- they're going to perform open-heart surgery on the Hubble without giving it a heart-lung machine, if you will. They're going to shut this thing down for the first time in a dozen years, put in a new power control unit to operate with the new solar arrays that they're going to put on there and no one can tell me for certain if when they flip the switch it'll turn back on. So that'll be one to watch.

COSTELLO: You're not kidding, because if it doesn't flip back on they're in trouble.

O'BRIEN: I would say.

COSTELLO: Oh yes.

O'BRIEN: Yes. I would say the -- as the astronauts said, you know the last Hubble repair mission they went up the instrument was not working because the gyroscopes had gone bad. The astronauts said, well I mean at the very least we're going to get it back going. The bar is kind of low. These guys, they've got a perfectly good operating telescope. If they screw up, as the term is used here at NASA, they're going to be kind of red-faced when they come back I think.

COSTELLO: OK, so they're going to be up there for 11 days and hopefully all will go well and they'll come back safely.

O'BRIEN: Yes, they're still on their way up there now. Seven minutes into the flight, the main engine still firing. We're going to be watching it for the next minute and a half making sure that -- as a matter of fact, take a look at NASA television there. That's obviously a long-range tracking thing. That's all we see of Columbia now some seven minutes after leaving the launch pad, just on the precipice of entering space right now. And we'll keep track in that to make sure they're safe in orbit.

COSTELLO: All right, thank you Miles O'Brien for informing us. Fascinating pictures this morning. Thanks so much.

O'BRIEN: Bye.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com