Orbital Maneuvers (3 page)

Susan found Jill and Jerry finishing the setup for the space suits while Paul was working on the other side of the middeck tending equipment that was monitoring an experiment in the cargo bay.  Susan would assist Paul with that experiment from the cargo bay while Jill worked on SCIEXSAT during their EVA.  Right now, Susan was more interested in how Jill was doing and if Jerry had been behaving himself.

“Hi, guys.  Looks like you’re almost done.”

Jerry looked up from the glove he was inspecting. “Yup, we’re pretty much set here.  Right, Jill?”

“Yeah, I think so.  Jerry’s finishing up the inspection on your glove and that’s it, until we suit up.”

“Great.” Susan turned to Jerry, “I’ll finish that up and you can head up to the flight deck, we are getting close to the rendezvous point.”

“Sure.  The glove is done, everything passes inspection.” He handed the glove to Susan and with a quick push off the floor, launched himself up to the flight deck.

Susan turned to Jill and handed her the glove to add to the suit.  “How are you doing?”

“Me?  I’m fine.” Susan studied Jill’s face for a moment, but before she could say anything Jill blurted out, “Actually, I’ve got butterflies the size of crows in my stomach!  I think I’m more nervous about the EVA than I was about the launch…but other than that I’m fine…really.”

Susan turned away from Jill as she realized that she was probably making her feel even more uncomfortable.  Susan thought about her first extra-vehicular activity.  The total sense of weightlessness was so much more profound as one ventured out into the bay.  She was struck by the harsh contrast of the bright white shuttle against the blackness of space and the stars that pierced the black velvet curtain that surrounded them.  Mother Earth hung like a big blue and white orb above her head, comforting to look at but yet impossibly far away.  The underwater simulations never prepared her for this. NASA did a great job at training the astronauts to put pieces of equipment together, but offered nothing on dealing with the distractions that this environment offered.  “Those are pretty big butterflies,” Susan said as she smiled at Jill.  I don’t think I had anything bigger than a sparrow for my first space walk.”

Jill smiled, and floated over to a locker to retrieve a tool that she needed to add to her suit.  Susan could see by the way Jill moved that the tension she was feeling was starting to ebb.  Jill was not the first choice for the mission specialist position.  She joined the main crew only after the first candidate was killed in a car accident.  That weighed heavily on Jill, and she always felt that she had to prove herself worthy of the job.  She often spent more time than anyone else working in the simulators and studying the procedures.  Unfortunately, the harder she tried, the more mistakes she made.  Eventually, she did master the tasks she was required to do and secured her position on the mission.  It was a big boost for Jill but she continued to be highly driven to prove to everyone, and mostly to herself, that she deserved that seat on the shuttle.  Susan could see the pressure building for Jill the closer they got to the EVA, and with Jerry’s badgering, Jill’s confidence level was beginning to drop.

Susan moved closer to Jill and placing her hands on her shoulders, and whispered, “Jill, you’ve done this a thousand times.  You know the procedure forward and backward and you are our expert on the satellite.  You’re going to do fine, anything that comes up you will handle it with ease.  Trust me.”

Jill smiled, and her expression told Susan that her words were effective.  “Thanks, Susan.  I’ll do my best, you can count on that.”

“I know you will, you always have.  Now, I’ve got to get up to help Ivan with the approach.”

“I’ll have the O2 ready for the pre-breathe by the time Jerry’s captured SCIEXSAT.”

Susan barely escaped the middeck as a wave of fear swept over her.  It was very draining talking to Jill and trying to remain composed.  She floated as slowly as she could to the flight deck, trying to compose herself and hoping that no one noticed her extended traverse of the decks.  Focusing on the rendezvous procedure would bring a welcome distraction, she hoped.

SCIEXSAT was about a mile ahead and it would be Ivan’s job to ease the shuttle above the satellite so that it would be within reach of the arm. They wanted to minimize the use of the maneuvering thrusters so as not to contaminate the satellite anymore than they had to, so the procedure was very delicate.  The satellite glistened in the sunlight like a beacon while the shuttle was still in shadow.  With a slight nudge, the maneuvering engines fired, setting the shuttle on its proper course. 

As they approached SCIEXSAT, Susan began calling out the separation distance to Ivan.  Ivan was busy visually lining up the shuttle with the satellite from the docking control station on the right side of the aft flight deck. The shuttle had rotated and was now approaching the satellite with its empty cargo bay facing the satellite, looking like a outfielder’s mitt about to receive a pop-fly. 

To slow the ship’s forward momentum at 25 meters, Ivan fired the shuttle’s thrusters with a loud BAM!  This resonated throughout the shuttle’s structure, shattering the silence on the flight deck; they would creep up on their quarry very slowly.  At 15 meters, Ivan pivoted the shuttle so that they were above the satellite.  When the shuttle slid directly above the satellite Ivan fired the retro thrusters, one more quick burst and Endeavour and SCIEXSAT floated together as if attached by an invisible beam. 

“Well done,” Susan said to Ivan.

“Thank you. Nothing you could not have done,” Ivan replied. 

Mission Control echoed Susan’s sentiment as they observed the process from the ground.  “Jerry, you are cleared to begin capture,” said Mission Control.

“Roger that.”

Peering through the observation port overlooking the payload bay, Jerry began to raise the shuttle’s arm.  Once the arm was in the right position, he could use the cameras on the arm to monitor the capture process.  Susan made her way over to the payload handling station to look over Jerry’s shoulder at the video image coming from the camera on the arm.

“Got SCIEXSAT on the screen,” Jerry called out to Mission Control.  Jerry had to guide a probe at the end of the arm into a receptacle on the satellite.  When the two components were fully engaged, a mechanical locking mechanism would trip, holding the satellite fast to the arm.

“Looking good, Jerry,” coached Susan.

“Almost there…just a few more inches…” Jerry said, more to himself than to anyone else.  “Got it!”

“Great job!” Susan said, patting Jerry on the back and turning to join Ivan to finish the checklist for this part of the mission.  She did not make it to her seat before she heard Jerry snarl, “Damn it!”

“What’s wrong?”

“The locking mechanism did not trip!  The docking probe just pulled out of the satellite!”

“Mission Control, we have a malfunction of the locking mechanism.  I’m going to try it again,” Jerry said in a very annoyed tone.  Jerry didn’t take to losing very well.  He had a type-A personality and was driven to succeed, to win at all costs.  He did not acknowledge the fact that he could lose, or do something wrong.  In most cases, every problem he ran up against was the fault of someone else, not his.  This plagued Jerry all through his career, but from his point of view he was confounded as to why he managed to end up working with people that were so incompetent.  Susan sensed this the very first time she met Jerry and later was disappointed to see that her initial impression was accurate.  It made the crew’s transition from just a group of people working together to a unified entity much longer and more difficult.  Susan spent a lot of time in damage control in the beginning of their training trying to smooth Jerry’s rough edges and other crewmember’s hurt feelings.  This led to a number of heated arguments between Susan and Jerry.  Eventually the crew melded and learned how to work with each other and with Jerry’s faults.  Susan still had to keep an eye on him, but he was more manageable, especially as he came to respect the rest of the crew for the individual talents they brought to the team.  Jerry begrudgingly acknowledged to Susan that NASA’s extensive astronaut selection process ensured that only the best and the brightest would fly.

Mission Control ignored Jerry’s little snit, “Roger that, Jerry.  We will look into the problem down here.”

Jerry pulled the probe all the way out of the receptacle and zoomed the camera in on the probe.  “The probe looks okay from here,” he told Susan.

“Can you look at the receptacle now?” Susan asked.

“Yeah, hang on while I move the arm down a bit,.” Jerry said.  “Looks like the receptacle is all clear…wait…no…it’s just a shadow…it looks okay.”

“Try it again, then.”

“Roger that,” Jerry was once again distracted with the task at hand as he maneuvered the probe toward the satellite.  The second try went as smoothly as the first except this time the lock engaged and held.  “Success!  Mission Control, I’ve got SCIEXSAT!” Jerry grinned ear-to-ear as he lowered the satellite into the cargo bay.  “The satellite is now in the payload bay and secured.” Jerry completed his station shutdown checklist and called over his shoulder, “Time for a snack,” as he dove through the hatch to the middeck.

Susan ignored Jerry and proceeded with the checklist.  Again, the ache inside distracted her from her work and she caught herself gazing out the window.  Ivan noticed the distraction in her voice and stopped to study her for a moment before he spoke.  “Susan…?” “Susan, are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Susan replied, returning to the checklist.

“You really do not look well, are you sure you are up to this EVA?”

“I am fine, just a little concerned with Jill about the EVA,” Susan said, looking down and avoiding Ivan’s gaze.

Ivan studied Susan’s face for some clue as to what was really going on inside.  “I am really getting concerned…”

Susan cut him off, “No!  Damn it, I’m fine!”

“Calm down, I just thought —”

“Ivan, I have this terrible feeling that something awful is going to happen.” Susan heard herself blurting out everything she wasn’t going to tell Ivan before she could weigh the pros and cons again.  “I know that doesn’t sound very professional, having a feeling, but I had a dream last night.” Susan told Ivan of the dream, how she woke up, and of the feelings she had been having all day.  She also relayed the story of her grandfather and how she felt at that time.  He listened quietly until she finished and softly said, “Susan, you are under a lot of pressure to have this mission end successfully.  I think you are just very concerned about Jill’s performance and that this satellite service mission might not go well.  It is all very natural to be concerned.”

“Let me tell you about the first time I had to lead a flight of MIG-29’s on a routine patrol mission,” he continued.  “I was two months out of flight school and in an active squadron, happy as could be that I was flying the MIG as much as I was.  My flight commander had taken a liking to me and one day, from out of nowhere, he told me that I was to be the flight leader the next day for the morning patrol.  I almost wet my pants with excitement and fear when he told me.  I had a lot of work to do to prepare the squadron for the flight.  Planning fuel loads, refueling waypoints, diversion bases, not to mention the flight assignments for each pilot and his wingman.  I checked and double-checked all the numbers and directions and radio calls, and finally got to bed at two in the morning.  We were to take off at o-six hundred hours!  The dream I had that night, or morning, did not help my nerves.  I dreamt that the flight took off fine but shortly thereafter, one by one, I would lose my flight members.  Every time I would lose a plane, I would go over the flight plan and try to figure out what I did wrong.  It was like being shot each time a plane fell out of the sky and I knew that I was responsible.  The dream ended when I was the only one left and all I could hear were the calls from the pilots, as their planes hit the ground, echoing in my headset.  I did not want to lead that flight when I woke up.  I thought of every way to get out of it without losing face with my flight commander.  Finally, I realized that I had no choice but to fly and lead the mission.  I kept telling myself that it was just a dream and I was just suffering a case of nerves but that did not really help.  I remember taking off and listening to every sound that came over the radio, listening for that message as it came in my dream when the first plane went down, or any indication that something was wrong.  But it never came.  The flight went off with no problems at all.  Well, until my flight commander jumped us in a surprise attack on our way back to base, but that is another story.”

“Susan, the mind can do strange things to people in the best of times, and in the worst of times it can direct you down the path of self destruction, if you are not careful.”

“I know what you’re saying, Ivan, and I appreciate it, but this is different,” said Susan.  I’ve had first time jitters before and this is not the same.  I don’t know if it’s a sixth sense, or intuition, but whatever you want to call it, it’s different.  It’s a feeling deep down inside, like you know you are going to experience something and it is not going to be pleasant.”

“Susan, what do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but for some reason I feel that it is coming from out there,” she said, pointing out the window at the black velvet of space studded with pinpricks of light.