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Very little of the thousands of hours of Mission Control audio on the website has been heard or documented. As you find moments of interest, post them here for discussion.

Author Topic: Challenger STS-51L Flight Director loop  (Read 3850 times)

Offline Naraht

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Challenger STS-51L Flight Director loop
« on: November 22, 2023, 07:42:21 am »
Apologies that this is slightly off-topic, but I thought people might be interested to listen to an extended version of the flight director loop during and after the Challenger disaster. This apparently isn't new but I hadn't heard the full recording before, which goes up until the controllers are released from their duties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNvXCAiRE4

In particular, those of you who are acquainted with Jay Greene as an Apollo-era FIDO may be interested to hear him here as a Flight Director, during one of NASA's darkest hours. (His last mission. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he chose not to return to Mission Control after this.)

Having heard him frequently joking around when calling checkpoints during the Apollo program, I find it almost unbearably poignant to hear him here reminding the GC that they need a checkpoint. Not to mention his words at the end telling controllers not to speak with anyone about what happened.

Offline SatelliteLily

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Re: Challenger STS-51L Flight Director loop
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2023, 02:25:29 pm »
Thank you.  This brings back some memories and is very educational.

Virginia