I only really touched on it before, and I never did finish my prior thread, but I wanted to write it a bit more concisely.
So for the better part of a decade I worked in the aerospace industry helping design, and then directing the build, of commercial spacecraft. Sirius radio, XM, Directv and quite a few others were all things I had my hands in.
I'll do my best to relate what goes into actually doing this, and answering any questions one may have. I cannot answer everything or get too detailed lest I get famous. That said, let's begin.
So at some point (if you're lucky) you get a program assigned specifically to you. This is typically a good day as it takes roughly two-three years to build one. In my time doing this, I was the primary on three satellites. It's good because now you have job security for a while longer. Go celebrate and pick up a shiny new bike.
Next you'll talk to your configuration engineer and get a set of drawings that you may or may not want to give feedback on-such as....where is this supposed to go? I can't support this item here-there's nowhere for a bracket. Etc. It's a week of tedious nonsense. Basically your drawings look something like this:
(http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/12/exploded_view_of_rosetta/15100468-1-eng-GB/Exploded_view_of_Rosetta_node_full_image_2.jpg)
In fact that might be all you get, along with a parts list of a few hundred thousand parts. My job entailed 1) acquiring those parts 2) tracking them and their installations 3) creating work instructions so that things would go together in the right order. Various components would be tested as they were installed, which means removing them was a huge waste of time. It's a one-off thing-put it together once, in the correct order.
That in of itself is complicated enough-go one and buy a box of parts that should make a motorcycle and put it together right the first time. If you had to remove nothing along the way, I'd be surprised.
What really complicated it was that not all the parts would be available at once, but they wanted you to get going for the sake of image. Please install the countershaft sprocket because we have it-the countershaft will be here in a month. Yeah.
Oh and it has to work the first time.
I drank a lot.
So, sticking with the previous photo, see the two panels where the arrows "Louvers" and "Onboard Computers" are?
(http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2014/12/exploded_view_of_rosetta/15100468-1-eng-GB/Exploded_view_of_Rosetta_node_full_image_2.jpg)
Those are the comm panels, and that's what one starts with. Giant composite panels-think 8-14' long, about 6' wide, and about 150 lbs.
Strong, light, don't drop anything on it. If you do drop something on it let me know-we can't fix it post launch. Probably as strong as a coke can-also one of the primary structures. Those panels have tubes running through them to distribute heat. Full of pure liquid Ammonia. It's heavier than air, so, if you break one somehow, climb. It won't support life.
So you get yer happy little panels and life isn't too complex at this point. It's like having a motorcycle frame and you're just bolting shocks to it and running a wiring harness. We're running the wires, we're installing the doohickeys, were still seeing our spouses at this point.
Now doohickey installation was very straightforward. I would acquire the doohickey and fill out a ream of paperwork stating I had the make the beast with two backsing thing.
I would give it to the tech who would then open it with a Quality witness, and they would document it's condition.
Next they'd make some special heat-transferring type glue (this is a multi hour process) and stick it in the correct location, as well as securing it with fasteners. The tech would prove they had the right fasteners, tool, torque certification (for both tech and tool), prove they could use it correctly on a meter that measure torque, and then put the fasteners in and torque them. Then you'd put a witness mark on them to prove they had been torqued, and then a few more reams of paperwork.
It would often take an entire shift to do one thing.
I needed to provide work instructions for each of those steps or they would not do any work.
I also had to verify that all the paperwork was done, and that the thing was actually where it should be, how it should be.
Ye olde office.
(http://cdn.satellitetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/hibay-18GenP-234-05.jpg)
So anyway, we build up the comm panels
I found a better picture btw:
(http://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-jcsat-14/wp-content/uploads/sites/85/2016/05/1300modular.jpg)
And once built up you mount 'em to the central cylinder. For those of us who drink like I used to, that would be the round thing in the middle.
How we did it was the panel was mounted to a big old aluminum frame, and we'd attach the crane to one end, and put some wheels on the other, stand it up, mount a counterweight to the back, and ease it in to the central cylinder.
Like so:
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f24c7pfzAO8/0.jpg)
That line of vertical circles in the leading edge of the comm panel is where the bolts would go. Very important to bring it in nice and square, and to watch for potential interferences.
The hardest part of this was not so much that everyone would come to watch, but that there was a film crew with their billion watt/8000 degree lamp that was typically shining in my face. I grew to hate this. Claiming I was an aborigine and that the camera would steal my soul did nothing to dissuade them. Eventually when they'd ask what the schedule looked like for video purposes, I'd tell them the wrong day so I wouldn't see them. They quickly learned to not ask me.
Here's a video of misc nonsense. At 29 seconds in you can see a comm panel being made vertical for mating purposes. There's a joke in there somewhere. At 34 seconds it's being brought in to the central cylinder. 42 seconds in shows what a satellite would look like at main body with both comm panels mounted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5676nQ9VlM
So, at this point we've hung both comm panels that we previously built up and now we spend a lot of time connecting them to each other so they can all talk happy happy like.
The other main task is running thermocouples throughout the entire thing-on all units, various parts of the panel, and covering everything else in thermal blankets. Why? It's going to go in the thermalvac chamber next.
The thermalvac chamber looks like a giant blue pumpkin. It is massive. We put the satellite in there in a (mostly) flight configuration, and suck all the air out. Then we get it realllly hot, then reallllly cold, then we repeat that shit for about two months to make sure nothing internally gets too hot or too cold. There are both heaters and things that cool built into it, with the end goal being that everything stays within certain temps. I don't know what those temps were, so go on and assume they were temps that would facilitate allowing the satellite to continue to work.
Here's a picture of it:
(http://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SSLchamber_SSL4X3.jpg)
Now, it was imperative that nothing gets left in there. Say you drop your pen-well...it's going to melt and outgas whatever it's made of. Said gases will settle on every thermal surface.
Don't drop shit in there.
I never did like working inside there-the floor was a weird grating that wasn't really supported all that, uh, great, and it would shift slightly under my bulk. I'd end up with this weird combination of claustrophobia coupled with a fear of falling, and those don't typically go together. As I was also in charge of the mechanical team and the mechanical configuration of the satellite, I'd basically be the last person in there, which had it's own set of concerns.
We did manage to put a satellite through the whole test with a bat in there. No, not the baseball kind. Poor thing. I had great difficulty writing that up as a problem.
Problem is: Desiccated deceased bat found in thermalvac chamber with satellite.
Should be: No desiccated deceased bat in thermalvac chamber with satellite.
Luckily, I was not the party who had to come up with a solution to prevent it from ever happening again. Bat alarm? Bat be gone? Who the make the beast with two backs knows.
A few more pictures of the thermalvac chamber, just for scale of the thing:
(http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/photos/2007/june/25/1768_full.jpg)
and the room is was in:
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/08/16/business/16SATELLITE/16SATELLITE-jumbo.jpg)
Some dude fell in it one day. I don't know how he managed that. He did survive, but he was hurting, and it was not easy to get him out.
So, we've managed to cook the thing for about two months. Pull it out, serve with whipped cre.....wait no, sorry.
So we pull it out and we mount the tower on it. The tower would be the doohickey above the grid pattern bit. Yes-that giant piece bolts on-it weighs less than 200 lbs, and it's ~6' tall or so. The grid pattern bit would be the solar arrays-more on that later.
(http://www.sslmda.com/images/pressrel/nimiq5_ship1_lg.jpg)
The reason it was done in that order was because with the tower on, it wouldn't fit in the thermalvac chamber. Satellites have grown over time.
So tower is on, make the thing as close to flight configuration as possible, and now we test a bunch of different aspects of it.
First up, the acoustic test. This may have been my favorite. We would transport it to an acoustic chamber (we didn't have one). The acoustic chamber is used to subject satellites to the same noise that a launcher produces during takeoff and as it flies through the atmosphere. I was told it would be loud enough to kill you if you were in there, so instead of going to 11, it went all the way to Mother-in-law. I decided not to test the livability of the chamber.
As most of out acoustic tests happened at the nearby Lockheed-Martin facility, no pictures exist. They were frowned upon there. In fact, security was tight enough that going to the bathroom unescorted was not allowed. Nothing makes you feel like a kid again like asking if you can please go pee.
I did dig up a picture of a different satellite in a different acoustic chamber to give you the idea.
(http://blog.boombotix.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/img4.jpg)
The noise would be coming out of the round things in the wall.
There is no real order to these tests-just based on facility availability. Keep in mind we were trying to do 10 of these per year. There were bottlenecks, fights for resources, and outright theft of hardware from one program for another. This left the person who got robbed having to explain for the shit they signed for.
I typically had minimal issues because I was a very nice guy. I'd happily cover for anyone who needed time off for anything, and then I would rob them blind and feign ignorance. "Hey we're ready for the next test and they can't even find all their bolts! We should go first!"
Before I started that gig I wasn't a liar or a thief.
Anyway one of the other tests we'd do is the CG/MOI, or center of gravity/moment of inertia. Gotta know where the weight is-I mean-we're going to fly it, so, if we're going to put our thrusters to best use, helps to know where the weight is. We'd do it both horizontally and vertically-basically balance the whole mess one some giant machine and spin it.
That entire L-shaped frame would spin, spacecraft and all:
(https://assets.cdn.spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/13063433/30534696483_2f95f6e1ac_o.jpg)
So we know how to balance it, and it'll survive the noise of a launch-how about the vibrations?
Oh yeah-faster baby. Harder. Only the first minute is worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEwc6Poi4dg
Need shake it in all directions too-not just up and down.
We also need to test the things that deploy post launch.
I mean-look at the square box and you'll notice it looks nothing like a launched one:
(http://sslmda.com/images/pressrel/mbsat2.jpeg)
We can't launch something that big, so the stuff that sticks out needs to be folded up and needs to unfold when we tell it to. The issue being it's all designed for low gravity situations, thus the motors/etc that would control these things can't hold them up on earth.
We had to get creative with fixtures, giant balloons, etc to offload the weight and see if they would launch how they should with no interferences.
Here's a video of a solar array deploying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5VLlBcV7JU
I really never liked moving the satellites. The way they had it set up always involved this giant metal fitting about an inch away from something delicate enough that a Q-tip would pierce it. That and basically the only way to access what one needed to access was to be under a suspended load, which is just an accident waiting to happen.
One day we were on a lightweight dolly made to just roll a s/c around on-not the type what would go vertical/horizontal/rotate. That saved me-I had an offsite crane operator because we were doing a test at the Canadian Space Agency, and they had to run the crane. We had hooked it up to the little dolly, and were removing the sling, and I told the crane operator to go down, and he went up.
Twice.
Luckily the dolly was light enough that it just came off the ground. If we were on the normal dolly he would've torn the satellite in half. I was famous for a while.
The only reason I wasn't shitcanned over that was there they needed to move it again the next day, and there was no one else available. Getting entry to that facility was a two week+ process. They couldn't wait, and they couldn't very well let me keep doing the same job after the screwup and then fire me.
In the end they blamed the crane operator and let me keep on keepin' on.
Here's one of the more epic impossible things I recall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdjWa0giVfI
Yes, it's worth five minutes of your time.
So, we've done the solar arrays and one *very* fancy reflector.
Most of them looked like this when deployed:
(http://sslmda.com/images/pressrel/hispasat-reflectors-deployed.jpg)
When frightened, the satellite expands to intimidate it's enemy....
Here's a video that is likely sped up-the process was slow as hell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSIaTNMeL6k
That's basically the last thing we test to make sure everything is happy mechanically.
From there, we go into yet another test.
Next up, now that we've verified the thing works, can withstand the rigors of space and a launch, we need to figure out where the signal it'll bounce off it's reflectors actually goes. This is simulated in the compact antenna test range, aka CATR (cater)
(http://sslmda.com/images/pressrel/ses5_catr.jpg)
I never felt...good after working in that room. They never told us what those weird foam absorbers were made out of, but it was mentioned to get out if there was ever a fire, as they would emit cyanide gas.
The satellite would be put up on that stand, which rotates and tilts for testing purposes, and then the reflectors tossed up there too. That was never easy-see the surface facing us? Don't touch it.
Please note, for each and every one of these tests, the satellite was moved from it's handling dolly to the test location. Sometimes this involved it going into a container, onto it's handling dolly, then to the test location, then reversed. Each move would take about a week to set up, get the paperwork for, and four hours to do if you were lucky, but more likely 6-8.
As I was test conductor, I was responsible for all that, along with spacecraft and personnel safety. You can't leave unless someone with the same certifications covers for you. As we were often offsite with no backup, I spent a lot of satellite moves in desperate need to pee.
There would be roughly 30-40 moves during a spacecraft build, and they were all difficult.
These aren't small things-they don't move easy. Picture for scale:
(http://www.sslmda.com/images/photo_gallery/resources/images/large/TerreStar-1%20Preparing%20for%20Dynamics%20Testing.jpg)
While we're at it-see how it's horizontal (or getting there)? The part that gets connected to the handling dolly?
Glued on.
Terrifying.
Lessee...so it's in CATR, it gets all it's happy performance tests done and if the RF weenies and the customer are happy, we take it down, and put the reflectors back on, and ready it for launch.
Then we put it in the sipping container-it's time for launch base.
This would be one of our shipping containers, going into an Antonov
(http://www.sslmda.com/images/pressrel/i17_antonov_lrg.jpg)
That container was designed with that plane in mind. It had about an inch of clearance.
Those planes are huge. Check out the truck for a sense of scale.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/02-antonov.JPG)
They offered me some extra money to escort it on the cargo plane, so I took it. Notice the lack of windows? The view was less than ideal from inside.
I was heading to the cabin at the top.
Check out the luxury!
We were not allowed to use or sit at the tables:
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/16-antonov.JPG)
The proletariat has no need for tables, comrade. Use glorious lap.
There were at least four seat covers on these seats. This made them lumpy, not cushioned.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/17-antonov.JPG)
It is amazing that plane stays in the air. It's a rough ride. The crew was content to ignore us. The cabin smelled of old cabbage and older Russians. They didn't care if we were standing, peeing, whatevering during flight, take off, or landing.
The ride was so rough I could not tell if we had taken off, were flying, or had landed.
The bathroom was interesting. Two toilets, facing each other. So close that when someone else joined you, you would have to interlace your legs. Cozy. Stainless. Cold. There was a back door to the rear fuselage in the bathroom. This is where the Russians went to smoke. I'm used to company in the bathroom but this was more than I cared for.
We went from San Fran to East coast Canada to refuel, and from there to Iceland. Iceland was a 12 hour layover for crew rest and for the passengers to explore.
The customs guy couldn't be found so they just....let us into the country. Remember that-it becomes important later.
We saw the many sights of Kerflavik, which is to say, not much.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/20-iceland.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/21-iceland.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/22-iceland.JPG)
Possibly the smallest hotel beds I had ever seen. The lights would not work without your room key put into a slot, I suppose to discourage energy waste. To those of us who didn't know this, figuring out the lights in the dark was interesting.
The people were very nice. While there, I saw a nice Ducati go rolling by with a very shapely rider in leathers. She pulled up next to another bike in a parking lot and both riders took their helmets off and shook out their hair. I was not expecting to see that-it was like out of a movie. A country full of attractive female sportbikers? I tried to quit, but no one would have any of it, and I was dragged back to the plane.
Next stop, hell.
(http://spacevids.tv/wp-content/flagallery/proton-m-luch-5b-amp-yamal-300k/2012_10_30_img_2486.jpg)
Takeoff, land somewhere in Russia to fuel, take off, land in Kazahkstan.
Again, no customs people around. They just...let me in the country.
Check out the fancy hydraulics on this thing though! The nose opens:
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/24-antonov.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/26-antonov.JPG)
It kneels:
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/27-antonov.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/28-antonov.JPG)
Ramp deploys:
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/30-antonov.JPG)
See the railcar in the back? It's going on that. The roads suck.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/31-antonov.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/32-antonov.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/33-antonov.JPG)
Meanwhile I need a make the beast with two backsing step to get into my pickup.
There are no pictures of the next steps, as I directed them and was indisposed.
Here is a video of what it normally looks like though-the nose is opened (as seen above), the ramp is built and secured, the satellite container is on skids and slid down the rails system that gets built on the ramp. Once clear of the plane, we pick it up with a crane and put it on a rail car, which then goes to the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In this video they use a truck, but we did not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=324&v=nskp7HIfvAk
After it and the other materials were packed away we took a terribly bumpy ride to the "hotel".
They called it a hotel. I think this was to make billing so much for it easier to the folks back home. This was a former soviet cold war barracks that had been "renovated".
Pictures are limited, due to camera restrictions. Let me share with you the epic scenery:
The Grande Entrance and sole bit of scenery anywhere in the entire country.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/49-kazakhstan.JPG)
Hotel room with view-most of those buildings appeared empty. I did not check.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/35-kazakhstan.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/36-kazakhstan.JPG)
Lots of derelict bits. Lots of roving half wild dogs. Going for a jog? Say hi to the dogs-they'll chase you.
Ever been in or hear of those sensory deprivation chambers, kinda lets you be alone with your thoughts? I was in a country modeled on that. These look like the same pictures, but they aren't. This is everything we could see, all the time.
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/46-kazakhstan.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/50-kazakhstan.JPG)
(http://paularickert.net/albums/userpics/48-kazakhstan.JPG)
Just nothing out there. The company knew how boring it was and sent several cases of hard liquor and ten kegs of beer.
We ran out of beer.
Now, there was a nice big presentation of all the "amenities" at the "hotel" prior to leaving.
It was like some make the beast with two backsed up tourist movie where the brochure couldn't be further from reality.
We have a pool!
Yes. It was a pool. Once. It wouldn't hold water past half full. It might have held 3 people, tops. All of four feet deep. We decided not to try it.
Yes, there too, was a soccer field. Great if a giant dusty field with rebar sticking out randomly was your thing.
They *did* have a pool hall. It was locked up on the second floor of the VIP building. If you were lucky, they'd let you see it through the locked glass doors, but mostly they'd chase you off.
Things quickly devolved into drunkenly losing our money to the Pinkerton guards.
But hey-you're there to work-why so bored all the time?
It has to do with how one actually launches a satellite, which I'll go into next.
Random tidbits.
The hot water in the "hotel" was hot.
So was the cold water.
Wear shoes on the bottom floor of the hotel, because the scorpions do actually come in.
None of the stairs are the same height as the adjoining stairs. This was impossible for me to get used to. I did better navigating while drunk, which was possible for me to get used to.
They can't cook bacon there. Too salty to eat, which was a surprising first for me. I'm convinced they made one batch, and just took the cover off every morning. Similar to the plastic food they use in commercials.
I can't speak for the chickens, but those were the smallest yolks ever seen.
They had a white board upon which the daily meal was written. This was fine until we wandered in one day and were greeted with just the word "meat". Please consider the sheer lack of a common language here. We did not speak Russian ( okay fine, hey baby how much?), but that was no help. They (claimed) did not speak English, however security dictated no work talk in the unsecured areas.
Us: Meat?
Us: What kind of meat?
Russian: Good meat.
Us: half in pantomime like cow? moo? (shows horns)? Sheep? Baa?
Russian: It's good meat-eat eat.
This went on for a bit, given the local custom of eating well, whatever they managed to run over. Not even kidding.
Eventually we ironed out it was some combination of beef laid out, with chicken and lamb on it, then rolled up. They had no idea how to explain this, hence "meat".
It wasn't on my first trip, but on my last one where we went out to eat somewhere in the nearest town. I ordered the chicken and they fed me either a small dog, or a medium cat. I figured it out when I got to the third (and final) piece and realized it was just a ribcage. The jury is out on what it was, exactly.
The jury agrees it sucked though.
Satellite at the Cosmodrome.
We put it on the dolly and the electrical monkeys are making sure they can still talk to it.
Whatever it is they do.
That takes some days if all goes well. In the meantime my mechanical crew and I set up the *very* fancy scale and calibrate it using a certified set of weights. This mostly went well. I stopped operations and evacuated at one point because an unknown fluid was leaking into the fueling hall. We were assured it was just water, which is bad enough in the clean room fueling hall, but it was leaking out of one of the light fixtures. This actually turned into an argument.
So-the middle of the satellite is a big ole hollow cylinder-that there is the fuel tank. The rocket is set up to get a certain amount of expected weight up, and no more. One can theoretically make the satellite too heavy-we need to know it's weight, and it needs to be spot on.
Once we got the dry weight of the satellite, we left it on the scale, and let the propulsion guys do their thing. Their thing involved no one else being in the facility while they loaded the various highly toxic fuels into it. It all seemed a bit silly-those guys got suited up in protective suits. We got sent to the hotel.
The same hotel that would have been in the blast zone in case they screwed up. I'm comforted-you comforted? Here, have a beer.
Either way, it takes them roughly a week to fuel it-one of the things I found interesting was they calculated the amount of air displaced from the fuel tank (aka the central cylinder) and subtracted that weight. Like I said-having the weight spot on was vital, and the more fuel we could cram into the thing, the longer the service life would be. Satellite life spans are based on fuel-all the power is supplied from the solar arrays and the sun. The positioning is all the thrusters, which is reliant on the fuel.
So it's fueled, and ideally the mechanical team is sober.
There was also a party for electrical and RF upon the completion of their checks earlier. There was typically a fueling party, which did occur as well.
At some point during the fueling party I realized there was no celebration for the mechanical team yet, nor would there be at all. Being in a state of drunken belligerence I decided that I was not okay with this. As I am the amenable sort, I gathered the prop team and whoever would listen, and told them about a car I had restored over some years with my dad, and how nice it turned out, and how everything worked so well. I took that car down to the fueling station and the gas jockey filled it up and everyone watching told that pump jockey "nice job!". At this point they began to realize the parallel I was drawing and explaining that they were a bunch of glorified gas jockeys, and this was now the "Dave built a make the beast with two backsing satellite party". I suspect if beating me senseless would not have delayed the launch, I may have suffered for my mouthing off, but screw 'em-it's my bird.
Now the fun! Now we go to pick it up now, but instead of the 4,000 or so lbs it weighed when we put it on the scale, now it's around 12,000 lbs. I think that's about six kilos for our metric readers. For our German readers, it was really heavy. Sorry-I don't actually know any German.
So first time it's being picked up and being put under this amount of strain ever. Good thing now it's no longer just poisonous, but now it's explosive. Why am I sober?
So we pick it up, and we put it on the Russian supplied transporter.
The transporter was old. WWII vintage. Someone had modified some old troop truck, put a flatbed on it and a small satellite fixture. It looked solid enough, but if I climbed on it and gently bounced on the balls of my feet, the entire thing would vibrate violently. All. Of. It.
I wouldn't have trusted it to support a half yard of dry mulch. Let's put a bomb on it, drive it over to the other bomb, see what happens.
I have my best guy on the transporter-I had made him practice on it during the week-the controls were wonky. The steering was a toggle switch. I think it had pedals. I suggested we not use the brake pedal-we'll just go at .01 miles per hour and let it coast to a stop. It's more weight than that thing probably should have seen, and mounted as high up as was inadvisable.
So, we get to the room with the rocket, park the transporter, pick up the satellite. We put it on a special stand that gets launched with it, and a bunch of Swiss guys hook up a special band with more explosive charges in it that will let the satellite separate from everything else when the time comes.To complicate things, the other folks had requests in metric, and our equipment was in 'Merican.
At this point I'm trying to direct a procedure with three languages involved, two of which I don't know any words in. It was not smooth.
Years of engineering experience on all sides.
Gesticulating.
"Da?
"Da."
You'd think they'd try and plan for this, but you'd be wrong.
We're just hanging the satellite from the ceiling this whole time, watching the crane scale to make sure nothing goes amiss. When the Swiss were done what they were doing the next thing is to put it on the rocket base which is enclosed in this large gantry-the one that had minimal guards on it, and plenty of blood from some dude who fell off of it. True to form, the Russians couldn't be bothered to clean it up. This very much helped my dire fear of heights.
The gantry can be seen in this video at about the :16 second mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YT0P3BSy4
See the huge metal ring at :30 seconds in? Right above the yellow bit-the parts below are rocket-that's where out satellite would sit.
So, we'd casually plop our bomb onto their bomb, making sure it was facing the right way, etc. The Russians would hook it up to their base, we'd disconnect our sling, and move it away.
Now, I don't...like heights at all. Turns out I needed to be all the way at the top of that gantry, and I had to move around a lot. Up down, round and round. I discovered a couple things while doing this. For starters, if I'm busy, I don't care that I'm up high. I was stressed and very much occupied-that whole operation/room/all the people in there answer to me during one of those moves. I was good at it too-no wasted effort-just very much getting it done with minimal fuss. I just wandered around like a high steel worker.
When the sling was removed and my operation was done, I no longer had anything to occupy me, and reality set in.
I crawled off that gantry.
All seven stories.
So, we're in the yellow gantry and we do our final checks, paperwork etc. Once we're happy, we need to encapsulate it in the faring.
So the entire mess gets tilted down like so:
(http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ExoMars2016_Baikonur_fairing_encapsulation_20160302_077px_1280.jpg)
All 12,000 lbs or so of bomb are still being held on to the rest of the fixture by glue.
And then one half of the faring is rolled up under it, and the other half is dropped on with a pair of linked cranes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvdoR-LclIQ
I was horrified at the craning process. They had a pair of cranes. They needed to move in sync as they're both connected to the same thing. How did the Russians solve this delicate process? One of the crane operators would watch the other crane operator and just....do what they did. Somehow, this worked.
It was traditional to sign the faring after this.
The powers that be frowned upon my putting a big arrow with "This End Up" on it.
No sense of humour there. [laugh]
Anyway, one the faring is on, it gets put on a railcar and brought to another room where it's mated with the Proton rocket.
Both pieces are on a set of integration dollies and are mated up. It is then brought to the transporter-erector, and then to the fueling station. Following that, its brought to the launch pad and erected. After that, ideally, the pointy end goes up.
I only ever got to see one launch, and it's because it happened while I as there for another satellite. We weren't typically allowed to stay on after it was in the faring because the job was done, and they didn't want to pay us for a week of not working. I cannot express how frustrating that mindset was after spending so much effort to put one together.
Next up, various launch base pictures:
Fueling hall:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-Begin-Joint-Ops.jpg)
Hooking the sling up to the spacecraft:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Ready-to-Move.preview.jpg)
The scale we calibrated:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Setting-up-the-Load-Ring.preview.jpg)
Satellite (in container (duh)) being put on railcar upon arrival:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Onload.jpg)
Transporter:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Moving.preview.jpg)
This is the spacecraft going on to the adapter:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-fitcheck.jpg)
Not a lot of space to put the sling connections in-don't touch anything!
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-hooking-up-the-satellite.jpg)
The adapter gets a blankie:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-mate-to-Pla.jpg)
More transporter-that look top heavy to you?
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-SC.jpg)
Picked up the adapter, now to the gantry:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/nimiq-6-to-the-tilter.jpg)
More gantry fun:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Look-Up-There.preview.jpg)
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Almost-There.preview.jpg)
Tilting it down:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/6-tilting.JPG)
All 12,000 lbs of bomb still being supported by.....glue.
I guess we did it right:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/7-Horizontal.JPG)
Faring being floated on:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/2-Coming-together.JPG)
In the faring:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-tilted.jpg)
The faring gets moved onto the train.
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Loading-AU-onto-the-Train.preview.jpg)
To the railcar!
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U40651.jpg)
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U41381.jpg)
Bring faring to the rest of the rocket:
Oh the upper rocker is connect to the lower rocket...bone
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U0861.JPG)
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U0762.preview.JPG)
After both ends are connected they lift the entire thing up-the whole rocket with a pair of cranes and put it on another railcar:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U0852.JPG)
Take it to the fueling shack,er, hall:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U0979.JPG)
To the launch site:
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/3A3U0955.JPG)
Pointy end up!
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Going-Up_1.preview.jpg)
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Pad-group-shots-45.preview.jpg)
I'm outta here!
(http://www.ilslaunch.com/sites/default/files/images/Nimiq-6-Liftoff-gallery.preview.jpg)
That's about all I got that's shareable. If I find any other pictures I'll post 'em up. I do believe I have some videos.
Here are the three I built:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8PN1Y5Dyf8
This one was 45 days early. Unheard of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHDwFe1yJTk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8cUD3ClL_s
Just another day in the office. :P
It took 3 pages to get to the pointy end. [roll] ;D
Pretty good compression for two years of work. ;D
Very interesting. From your screen name I thought you probably worked for DirecTV. You know this is the DMF and we will just skim through looking at the cool pictures and won't read the text you put so much work into. But still, good on ya for having an interesting job and sharing. Seems like a big difference between shop testing and the real thing when a system has to work in orbit. Must be very rewarding when things unfold exactly as planned.
Quote from: Satellite smithy on November 13, 2017, 02:38:32 PM
Pretty good compression for two years of work. ;D
Wasn't there a photo of a DMF sticker placed on/in one of the rockets? ;D
So this is why my cable bill is so big? ???
Great stuff, thanks for sharing!!