Friday, April 25, 2008

What We Did for Boeing on the S1C Stage


These pictures are the Instrument Rings. .

The top ring is in the early stages of being built. We measured most all of the aspects of the stage. We worked with telemetry. We worked on the instruments for the S1C Stage. We analyzed data from many transducers. They transmit in a range of 0-5 VDC. There were over 800 measurments but our team only monitored about 100. The data was transmitted in Single Sideband (SS/FM), FM/FM, Pulse Code Modulation (PCM/FM) and Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM/FM). Even after all these years I remember. It was the only time in my life that I worked with this kind of data. This is just some of the things we monitored: mechanical movements, atmospheric pressure, sound level, temperature, vibrations, fuel flow, and other systems' performance. We may have monitored engine thrust but I can't remember. We monitored other instruments on the ring to make sure they were working properly. All of this data was changed into electrical signals and transmitted as above.
Then the measurements were recorded on a huge roll of brown paper. This roll was brought into our work area at Michoud. Our team rushed to the tables where it was and rolled out the results. It was much like a seismograph in that we had squiggly lines to study. We knew what the leads were. There was whoops and hollers when we found the results to be perfect. They were. Every time. Sally and I sometimes had to shove the guys out of the way-they hogged the roll.

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