Orbiter Boom Sensor System
The orbiter boom sensor system ( OBSS , dt. Orbiter boom sensor system ) is a 15.33 meter long boom with a plurality of instruments, to the Remote Manipulator System ( Canadarm ) of the space shuttle has been attached. Each of the orbiters had its own OBSS. The boom was designed and built by the Canadian aerospace company MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA).
It was introduced by NASA for the STS-114 shuttle mission . This was the space shuttle's first mission after the Columbia disaster, in which damage to the heat shield caused the shuttle to burn up and the crew to die. In order to prevent a repetition of this catastrophe, the OBSS was introduced, among other things, which enables the crew to inspect the thermal protection system (TPS) in space.
If damage had been found during such an inspection, the crew could have repaired it in the course of a space exit. If the problem could not have been repaired in orbit , the plan was to steer the shuttle to the ISS and wait there for the STS-3xx rescue mission to arrive .
The instruments of the OBSS included visual camera systems , the Laser Dynamic Range Imager (LDRI) and the Laser Camera System (LCS). The sensors offered a resolution of a few millimeters and scanned at a speed of around 63 mm per second .
The OBSS was routinely used to check the wing edges, nose and crew cabin of the shuttle after each take-off. If flight engineers suspected potential damage at another point on the orbiter from the camera recordings of the take-off, this was also inspected using the OBSS.
During missions to the ISS, the rear part of the heat shield was also checked using the rendezvous pitch maneuver .
In the shuttle mission STS-134 , the OBSS was Endeavor on the Integrated Truss Structure of the ISS installed. It was named Enhanced International Space Station Boom Assembly .
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Individual evidence
- ↑ nasaspaceflight.com: STS-134: PRCB baselines Penultimate Shuttle Flight to Take AMS to station , accessed April 29, 2011