STS-1 Commander John Young (centre) and Pilot Bob Crippen (right) presenta signed photo to Orroral Station Director Lewis Wainwright when they visited in September 1981.
(Photo courtesy Philip Clark and Rob Quick.)
STS-1 audio recorded at Orroral
Orroral Audio and notes from Philip Clark
These recordings were madeduring the first flight of the Space Shuttle in April 1981. The crew ofColumbia were John Young and Bob Crippen.
The tape is a recording of three communications circuits recorded on a single track recorder. Therefore there are a few occasions where conversations overlapped. The communications circuits recorded were:
1. Theoff-station communications between Orroral, the control centres in the United States, and other stations (External circuit.)
2. Theair to ground number one circuit between Orroral and the United States (Air/ground circuit.)
3. Theinternal on-station communications circuit within the Orroral Valley Tracking Station.
The recording of orbit 14 includes a full H-45 interface with Goddard and Houston. After the end of Orroral 14 pass is the wake up music played to Shuttle through Quito. “Blastoff Columbia”, sung by Roy McCall.
(Some of the recordings include communications with Yarragadee. There was usually only a gap of one or two minutes between Yarragadee LOS and Orroral AOS. The Yarragadee station was a voice only communications station in Western Australia, located a little south of Geraldton, and supervised by Orroral. CAP COM is the Houston astronaut voice communicator, the only person authorised to speak to the space shuttle except in an emergency.)
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STS-1 Commander John Young (centre) and Pilot Bob Crippen (right) presenta signed photo to Orroral Station Director Lewis Wainwright when they visited in September 1981. (Photo courtesy Philip Clark and Rob Quick.) |
Timeline of passes for the first Space Shuttle flight tracked at Orroral.
(Z time is GMT or UTC, MET is Mission Elapsed Time – time from launch)
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STS-1 Commander John Young and Pilot Bob Crippen are welcomed in the canteen at Orroral in September 1981. Note the special cake. (Photo courtesy Philip Clark and Rob Quick.) |
Withspecial thanks to Philip Clark for the audio files, times and notes.
Philip’s voice, as the Orroral Comm Tech for STS-1, is heard on many of these recordings.
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Philip Clark at Orroral Valley (photo taken 1983) and his forthcoming book,The Final Orbit. Learn about how you can support its publication at the link. (Philip is also author ofAcquisition: The Story of Orroral Valley Space Tracking Station.) |