"The sooner the better."
"Atlantis, H-two tank pressurization is okay. You are go for launch at this time. Good luck."
"Go for launch," Paddock replied. "Thanks."
At T-minus-twenty-five seconds the shuttle countdown switched to the onboard computers.
"Fifteen seconds and counting."
"Here we go," Paddock said over the intercom, to the rest of the crew. "Going flying now."
Precisely at 3.8 seconds the computers commanded the three space shuttle main engines to start, each producing 375,000 pounds of thrust.
"We have main engine start — two, one, zero."
At T-plus-2.64 seconds, the orbiter s two powerful solid rocket boosters ignited, each creating 2,650,000 pounds of thrust. There was no turning back now, no shutting down the rocket boosters. The space shuttle was committed to at least a partial flight. Propelled by over 6 million pounds of combined thrust, the orbiter levitated off the launchpad.
"We have liftoff! We have liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis!" Seconds slowly passed. "The tower has been cleared; all engines look good."
Paddock keyed his radio. "Roger, Houston, looks good from my view."
"Beginning the roll," Houston reported.
"Roger, rolling."
Belching billowing clouds of gray smoke and shaking the ground, the huge shuttle began a slow roll to the "heads down" position. All eyes were glued to the magnificent orbiter.
No one saw where the missile came from. The mushrooming clouds of smoke from the solid rockets obstructed the wisp of telltale smoke. The missile hit the shuttles main engines, destroying two of them.
"Atlantis, we show two main engine failures!"
"We have trouble!" Paddock said excitedly. "W^re returning to launch site, two engine failure."
The RTLS option was used if the main propulsion system malfunctioned in the first four minutes and twenty seconds of flight.
Paddock and Dinsmore could not begin the critical RTLS maneuver until the solid-propellant boosters burned out and were jettisoned. On the flight deck. Paddock and Dinsmore were going through the emergency checklists and trying to figure out what happened. Other systems were affected by the emergency, but the orbiter was intact and pressurized.
The rest of the stunned crew was preparing to go into the water if Paddock had to ditch the shuttle.
There was a constant stream of dialogue with Houston, but no one had any idea what happened. Visions of Chollmgrr and Columbia flashed through the minds of most support personnel. The news from the launch site was blood-chilling for the controllers in Houston.
A number of pieces from the shuttle s main engines had impacted close to Pad 39B.
The mission controller elected not to say anything to the flight crew. At this stage of the emergency the information was not helpful and the controller didnt want to distract Paddock and Dinsmore.
Continuing on its trajectory, the orbiter finally jettisoned the two reusable solid rocket boosters. The space shuttle and external tank would continue down-range on the power of the one main engine, both orbital maneuvering engines, and the four aft-firing maneuvering rockets.
Paddock would wait until he had barely enough propellants in the tank to reverse the direction of flight. This would be a "rabbit s foot" moment during the difficult maneuver.
On the ground, emergency vehicles of all types were converging near the runway. Rescue boats were standing out to sea.
With Dinsmore backing him up, Paddock began a 5-degree-per-second pitch. Come on — don't blow this maneuver.
Time seemed to go into slow motion until the orbiter was almost headed toward the landing site. That s when the exotic propellants were exhausted and the main engine expired, followed by the separation of the huge external fuel tank.
Paddock turned to Dinsmore and shook his head. "Well, I hope everyone brought their swim fins along."
Dinsmore nodded. "Looks a bit low on energy."
Tm going to have to improvise: aim closer to the end of the runway and then wrap it up tight."
"Yeah, only option to make the runway."
Paddock talked to the crew and kept them apprised of where he was in the evolution. He also conferred with the controllers at the Kennedy shutde landing facility and was given the current winds.
"Were not making the numbers," Paddock said in a dejected voice. "Just shy, maybe four or five percent."
"Atlantis, Houston."
"Go, Houston."
"How does it look?
"Not promising, but we still have a chance "
"Roger."
With eighty-five seconds to touchdown, the crippled orbiter was descending on a steep 22-degree glide slope through 13,100 feet, 420 mph, 7.6 miles from the ^ooo-foot-long and 300-foot-wide runway. The landing strip had a i,ooo-foot overrun at each end for improved safety.
Not wanting to use the speed brake, which doubled as the rudder at the back of the shutde s vertical stabilizer, Paddock concentrated on maintaining the optimum glide slope to make the runway. He keyed the intercom and spoke to Dinsmore. "Rocket Two, what do you think?"
"Maybe we should have talked with one of our real rocket scientists."
"No time, have to make the call."
Thirty-three seconds to touchdown, 2.1 miles from the runway, 356 mph out of 1,700 feet.
"We re not gonna make it," Paddock announced to the crew, as he banked the orbiter in preparation to ditch offshore. He initiated the pre-flare. "Brace yourself for ditching!"
Paddock glanced at Dinsmore. "We leave the gear up; dont touch the landing gear."
"You can bet on it."
"Call my speeds," Paddock said, as he began the flare to 1.5-degrees nose up, "and altitude."
"Three-hundred-five, altitude one hundred thirty feet."
Using his considerable flying skills, the former navy fighter pilot nursed the shutde lower. Fortunately there were no boats in his path.
"Two-sixty-five, eighty feet."
Paddock began bleeding off airspeed.
"Two-fifteen, twenty feet."
Holding the orbiter in ground effect — in this case, water effect-Paddock slowed Atlantis and eased it down. He deployed the split-rudder speed brake and made a slight adjustment in attitude.
"Two hundred, maybe ten feet."
The water was reasonably smooth, and the shuttle skipped a couple of times before it made solid contact. Paddock held the nose up as long as possible before it fell through and contacted the surface, sending a wall of water washing over the orbiter. The deceleration to a full stop was fairly benign and the pilots scrambled to get out of their seats.
"Let s go!" the shuttle commander ordered. "Out the hatch!"
The crew removed the left-hand overhead window near the aft crew station behind the flight deck. They grabbed the life raft, draped the thermal curtains over the side of the vehicle, and tossed out a rope to descend to the water.
In less time than it took to get all seven of the crew in the life raft, rescue boats began arriving. Everyone thought the orbiter was floating until they realized it was resting on the bottom.
At the same time the space shutde had jettisoned its external fuel tank, the mystery of what happened to the orbiter was solved. A NASA Huey helicopter carrying heavily armed security personnel was slowly flying along the beach looking for debris from the damaged shuttle. When they spotted suspicious items, they radioed the location to searchers on the ground. They in turn marked the item and left a guard at the site.
One of the observers in the helicopter noticed a slight movement along a low beach ridge. The helicopter made a 180-degree turn, approached the spot, and descended to land. Like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, a young bearded man rose from the sand and shot himself in the head with a small 22-caliber handgun.
Upon further investigation, the security personnel discovered a partially buried man-portable surface-to-air missile launcher. The SA-18 Grouse missile was manufactured by the Machine Production Design Bureau, Kolomna, Russian Federation. It had been hermetically sealed in an opaque shrink-wrapped plastic container.