“Entry logic loaded, Skip.”
The 6-inch-square glass instrument in front of each pilot’s chest would display side-to-side trajectory errors during descent.
“And my side, Jack: Entry roll mode select lever-locked yaw/jet rudder.”
“Yaw/jet rudder, Will.”
The clock above the center windows on the cabin ceiling showed 09 hours 30 minutes and the event timer above Parker’s right knee ticked down past 25 minutes to de-orbit ignition.
“Won’t see that again for a while, Will.” Enright blinked through his moist mask toward his right.
“Guess not, Jacob.”
Outside, to the southwest, the sun flattened against a dazzling orange horizon. The inverted ocean below was already black as Endeavor carried her three wards into Shuttle’s seventh sunset in 9½ hours. A thin red band stretched above the brighter orange band for the full length of the slightly curved, upside-down horizon. With a rapid change from orange to bright purple, the red flat sun winked out leaving the starship in her last frigid night in orbit.
“I got her,” the AC called as he pushed the illuminated CSS pushbutton on the glareshield overhanging the forward instrument panels. He energized Control Stick Steering to powerup the rotational hand controller between his thighs. The pilot in command wanted to feel his ship live in his hands. He twitched the control stick. Mother instantly chose the best combination of RCS thrusters in her nose and ruined tail to roll the starship rightside up for one final star sight in darkness. A cold, alabaster-white moon hung low in the northeast sky above the dark horizon as Endeavor executed her slow, wobbly wingover in the eternal silence.
Three minutes after sunset, Shuttle headed south across the Equator for her last transit of the Southern Hemisphere and her last summertime aloft. Directly below, the darkness swallowed the Galapagos Islands 600 nautical miles west of Ecuador.
“Ready on the Auxiliary Power Units — what’s left of ’em.”
“Ready APU Two and Three, Skipper.”
“Okay, Jack. Let’s do ’em both together. We’re gettin’ short here… Your side, Panel Right-2: Controller power lever-locked on.”
“Two and Three, on and on.”
“Fuel tank valves, lever-locked open.”
“APU, Two and Three, open and open.”
“Ready.”
“Two and Three, barber-polled ready to start, Skip.”
“Speed select… Let’s go with high on Two and normal on Three.”
“Two high; Number Three normal speed.”
“Hit it, Jack.”
“Number Two APU, Ignition! RPM and exhaust gas temp okay.”
“Number Three, Jack?”
“Number Three APU, Ignition!.. Nothing, Will. Going to override-start… And Three is running. RPM and EGT are Go.”
“Super, Jack. Hydraulics circulation pump, Two and Three, on.”
“On and on… Pressures green.”
“Main hydraulic pump pressures, lever-locked normal.” “Two and Three, normal and normal, Will.”
“APU auto shutdown, enable.”
“Automatic shutdown, enable Two and Three.”
“APU Number Two: Fuel pump valve coolant, Loops A and B, auto.”
“Valves A and B, automatic… At least we can steer her.”
The Auxiliary Power Units are essential to move Shuttle’s wing surfaces for airplane-steering in the lower atmosphere.
“Star-trackers running, Jack. P-52 running.”
Mother and her two sensors scanned the dark southern sky.
“Make it a good one, Skipper.”
The AC moved the control stick between his legs to shift Endeavor’s nose to the northwest. Peering into the COAS periscope tube, he found the bright star Altair in the constellation Aquila 15 degrees above the black horizon on a magnetic bearing of 280 degrees True.
“Star Number 51, mark!”
Enright entered Altair into the computer at 09 hours 36 minutes, MET, over Peru.
Since the COAS cannot swing across the sky on its own as can the automatic star-trackers in Shuttle’s nose, Parker turned the ship heads up to the southwest. High in the sky, almost overhead at 60 degrees high, he found the bright star Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus at a compass bearing of 220 degrees True. High Fomalhaut with faint Al Na-ir in Grus constellation 20 degres lower and Peacock in the constellation Pavo 15 degrees closer to the southern horizon formed a three-star line from Shuttle to the South.
“Fomalhaut, mark!”
Enright tapped Star Number 56 into the computers.
“One more for good measure, Skipper.”
Parker steered Shuttle’s nose toward the northeast. He squinted into the COAS sighting-mirror as Capella in Auriga slowly crossed the COAS crosshairs 10 degrees above the horizon and 40 degrees east of north. Capella was faint below and left of the brilliant moon.
“Number 12, mark!”
“Got it, Will. Let Mother chew on that.”
Mother reduced her own star sights from the two startrackers and Parker’s sights. While she worked, the AC removed the COAS tube from the ceiling brackets and stowed the little sextant away.
“IMU aligned all balls. Well, Jack. Mother knows where we are anyway.”
Over nighttime Bolivia, Endeavor was commanded to roll over until she was flat on her back for the OMS burn only 15 minutes away. The ignition of the single OMS rocket from the ship’s crippled tail feathers was all that stood between Endeavor and home.
17
“They are now in darkness over the mountains around Sucre, Bolivia. Revolution seven. Retro fire in 14 minutes.”
The big man raised an eyebrow as he scanned the wall plot board beyond the glass greenhouse suspended above the floor. A tiny bug followed a curved line across the video projection of the Earth’s middle latitudes 40 degrees above and below the Equator. Above the large screen, one clock displayed 00:41 GREENWICH, another, 19:41 EASTERN STANDARD, and the third digital clock read 00:09:41 MISSION ELAPSED TIME.
Four tired men in open, rumpled collars were at table with large, grim Admiral Michael Thomas Hauch.
An afternoon nap had revived the sailor who looked less worn than the men around him. By the vault door to the basement bunker, two young Marines stood rigidly like pillars of salt.
Admiral Hauch was elegant in his dress blues which carried seven inches of ribbons and gold wings upon his heart. He only broke out his blues for audiences with the Chiefs or with the Old Man himself.
The Admiral rose and walked to the glass wall of their chill cage. His spit-shined shoes glowed five feet above the concrete floor under the floor of clear glass. Standing erect by the glass wall, the Admiral gripped one huge fist in the other behind his back which faced the men behind him. As he gazed at the wall charts, he cut every inch the image of the flag ship commander upon his high quarterdeck.
“Well, Doctor. Your impressions now?”
“Admiral.” The little man with the squirrel face fumbled with a stack of green computer paper as he addressed the Admiral’s ample backside. The technocrat perspired under the ceiling lights.
“We’ve run a full re-entry simulation. Assuming an operational right OMS pod with its RCS capabilities, Endeavor can shoot a successful re-entry profile. They will experience lateral trim imbalance flying with only half their aft RCS capacity, but they should still be within the attitude dead-band limits of the flight control loops. Endeavor will have to fire the one remaining, OMS engine for a full five minutes to do the work of two normal engines. Our real concern is the tile loss on the aft fuselage.”
“Fatal?”
“Don’t think so, Admiral. We may lose some structural integrity from soak-back heating, maybe even one of the two, surviving auxiliary power units. But I vote for survival.”
The standing Admiral sighed audibly.