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From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Body Flap
Message-ID: <14705@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 20 Sep 89 14:22:27 GMT
References: <31690@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <2073@ganymede.inmos.co.uk>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
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In article <2073@ganymede.inmos.co.uk> conor@inmos.co.uk (Conor O'Neill) writes:
>In article <31690@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes:
>>          On Sunday, engineers completed a
>>          test of the body flap ...
>
>What is the body flap?

The body flap is a trapezoidal "tail" extending from the ventral rear
surface of the orbiter fuselage, back underneath the SSME exhaust
nozzles.  Its primary purpose is to protect the engines from damage
during atmospheric re-entry.  But it is also hinged and hydraulically
controlled so that the orbiter's overall "lifting body" shape can be
tuned during re-entry.

The body flap does nothing useful during launch and ascent to orbit; it
is supposed to stay still.  However a new long range 35mm tracking
camera (installed on a beach north of the shuttle launch facility after
the Challenger failure) detected flap motion of 12 inches or more during
the first minute of Columbia's August flight.  Nobody seems to have an
explanation yet.

I suspect they'll sweep this one under the rug for later study -- people
are going to SCREAM if the DOD or LDEF or HST manifests are messed with
any further.
-- 
'We have luck only with women --    \\\     Tom Neff
          not spacecraft!'         *-((O    tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET
 -- R. Kremnev, builder of FOBOS      \\\   uunet!bfmny0!tneff (UUCP)