“Then what was all the commotion inside the control room a half hour ago, Mr. Hunter? Is Lightning in any danger?”
Hunter stopped and slowly turned around. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the crowd in front of him for a few seconds before answering. “Lightning is fine! Everyone is always very tense during lift-offs, and for reasons that should be obvious to you all, we were particularly tense about this flight because of what it stands for. As I said earlier, a full press conference will take place in two hours, after Lightning reaches final orbit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Thank you.”
The mob of reporters blasted a fusillade of questions that Hunter politely dodged as he walked back into Mission Control.
Kessler strapped himself into his flight seat and watched Jones do the same. He felt much more comfortable now that they had removed their bulky rust-brown-colored emergency ejection suits — a requirement during lift-offs and landings — and had put on their blue intra-vehicular assembly clothing — flight overalls with lots of pockets and Velcro for attaching small items.
Kessler reached for the ballpoint pen tucked in a pocket on the side of his left arm. The pen was not ordinary. Because of the lack of gravity, the pen had been pressurized to force the ink to the ball. He grabbed the notepad floating over the control panel. A string kept it secured to the panel to prevent it from wandering around inside the flight deck. He made an entry of the current time and brief flight status.
“Houston, you there?”
“Roger, Lightning. We copy you loud and clear,” Kessler heard Hunter respond through the speakers.
“OMS burn in two minutes, mark.”
“Roger.”
“Any more news on the problem on number-one SSME?”
“Ah, negative, Lightning, but it shouldn’t matter. The moment you shut the SSME off, the fuel lines to the engine got cut off. The only concern over here is for the possible damage to the orbiter.”
“Same over here, Houston, but we won’t know until we go outside. By the way, we made a visual check from the aft windows. The payload bay appears normal.”
“Good. We were just about to ask you that. How are you guys doing otherwise?”
“No problems. Just a little tired, I guess. One minute mark.”
“Well, as soon as you reach your new orbit you’ll have a reduced rest period before EVA. Sorry, guys, we’re cutting your first break to three hours instead of eight. We all need to put our minds at ease about your situation, but without a visual we won’t know for sure.”
“No offense, Houston, but Jones and I prefer to start EVA as soon as we reach the new orbit. Thirty seconds to ignition.”
“Continue with countdown, Lightning. We’ll discuss this issue after the burn.”
“Roger. Twenty seconds. OMS firing sequence started. Fifteen seconds.”
Kessler couldn’t explain it, but he felt relaxed. He had things under control. “Five seconds… four… three… two… one… ignition!”
Kessler felt the light kick of the two six-thousand-pound-thrust Orbital Maneuvering System engines. Lightning began to accelerate under its own power to change its current egg-shaped orbit to a circular orbit of 160 miles.
“Thirty seconds. Systems nominal,” Kessler said. “One minute. Fuel and oxidizer pressure nominal. Helium pressure at… Houston, we have another problem.” The General Purpose Computers automatically stopped the OMS engines when helium pressure dropped below 460 PSI on the left OMS. He looked at Jones.
“Shit. OMS warning lights are red for both engines,” said Jones.
Kessler checked control panel F7 and confirmed Jones’s observation. The OMS engine Fault Detection and Identification system told him that in addition to losing helium pressure on one OMS engine, both OMS engines had failed the chamber and velocity tests. He eyed the helium pressure on the right OMS engine. It showed a nominal two thousand PSI. He reached for panel C2 and disarmed both engines.
“Lightning, Houston. OMS burn stopped thirty seconds early. New orbit one-four-five miles.”
“Houston,” Kessler began. “Helium pressure continues to drop on the left OMS… four hundred PSI… three hundred. What’s going on? I’ve already turned off both engines.”
“Stand by, Lightning. We’re checking.”
Kessler simply sighed, not believing all of what was actually happening to him. He took off his voice-activated headset. Jones did the same.
“What do you think, CJ?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m beginning to get a little worried about this bird. If this had happened during re-entry we’d be in a shitload of trouble.”
Kessler frowned. Jones was right on the money with that. If the OMS engines failed during re-entry burn, there was no telling where Lightning would actually reach Earth. Most likely too far away from the nearest qualified landing strip, and that’s assuming they somehow managed to make it through re-entry without burning up while entering the atmosphere at the wrong angle and speed.
“But heck,” Jones continued. “I guess we won’t have to worry about that since the fucking engines won’t even start anymore.”
Kessler slowly shook his head and exhaled. “Damn!” He put the headset back on. Jones did the same. “What’s going on, Houston?”
“Lightning, diagnostics is coming up with a major leak in the feed line from the left helium tank to the left OMS engine. We also just noticed that the propellant level on the left OMS tank is dropping.”
“I hope to God it’s leaking to space and not internally,” Kessler remarked as he read a propellant pressure of 120 PSI instead of the normal 250 PSI seconds before. Panel F7 now had a few more warning lights on.
“Shit!” Jones yanked off his headset, unstrapped, and propelled himself toward the aft windows. He turned on the lights inside the cargo bay.
“What was that, Lightning?”
“Jones’s checking to make sure there are no leaks inside the cargo bay. I share his concern about remaining in one piece, Houston.” Kessler shook his head at the thought of volatile hydrazine propellant floating inside the orbiter. Unlike helium, hydrazine would ignite the moment it came in contact with any gas containing oxygen.
“We feel like it’s leaking into space, Lightning.”
“Hey, Mike,” Jones screamed from the back. “Tell them I can’t see any leaks back there. All appears normal.”
“Houston, Jones can’t see a leak internally. It must be leaking outside. Left OMS hydrazine pressure below fifty PSI and dropping. Helium pressure’s down in the mud, too. Any ideas?”
“Confirm nominal reading on right OMS tanks.”
Kessler eyed the levels. “Right OMS shows helium at two thousand PSI. Hydrazine also nominal at two-six-five PSI.”
“We’re running diagnostics, Lightning, but based on the warning lights, it looks like a major OMS malfunction. Both engines show as failures.”