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Activity 3.1

Launch Day Timeline

Overview
To have your students create a very simple timeline, showing the important events performed by the astronauts after launch.  This will introduce students to schedules and timelines, and have them become familiar with Mission Elapsed Time (MET), orbit numbers, and day/night during orbit.

Time
1 class period

Materials
instruction page
student worksheet

Getting Ready
Have students work individually or in pairs.  Provide each student or group with a copy of the student worksheet.  Be prepared to discuss what the astronauts do after launch (see "discussion").

Procedure
There are four rows for the students to fill out from the information you'll provide them.  These are the rows marked "MET", "crew activities", "orbit number" and "day/night".  On the student worksheet, the first part of each row is already filled in.

Discussion
NASA schedules all events during a shuttle mission by MET, and often uses the orbit number as a cross-reference.  On KidSat, your students will need to be able to specify the MET and orbit number of their photo selections; and, of course, they'll need to understand the day/night (since photos can only be taken during the day!)

For this activity, we've chosen the first 6 hours (4 orbits) of a flight because these activities are similar on all flights, and the timeline isn't too crowded with information.  During this time, the astronauts are initially strapped in their seats as they prepare the shuttle for orbit (this includes firing the OMS engines to get the shuttle into a stable orbit and reconfiguring the shuttle's computers); they then get out of their seats, change clothes, pack away some of their launch gear, and unpack a few things like cameras (not KidSat!) and checklists;  the most important thing they will do after OMS burn is open the payload bay doors.  If the doors can't be opened for some reason, the shuttle will have to come back to Earth.  Assuming the doors open properly, the crew will begin to activate the Spacehab module.  Spacehab is a pressurized module that will be carried in the payload bay on STS-81.  It carries several experiments, and gives the crew more working space.  Only 3 hours after launch, the crew should have completed all their activities for the day.  The Pre-sleep period is when they fix and eat dinner, and get ready for bed.  They go to sleep five hours after launch.