How many shuttle flights per year without Challenger accident?

[Yeechang Lee]

In retrospect we know that the O-ring issue that destroyed Challenger
was inevitable. It had almost happened in earlier flights and would
likely have happened on some winter day sooner or later. That said,
let's say it doesn't ever happen. Maybe because it's diagnosed, or
NASA and Thiokol listen to Boisjoly and require a certain outside
temperature for launches, or NASA just never schedules a launch on
that cold a day.

Without Challenger, shuttles would have continued to carry commercial
and DoD payloads. Discovery would be dedicated to SLC-6
launches. Additional American politicians are likely shuttle
passengers, as well as senior military leaders like Pete Aldridge and
more foreign dignitaries (Prince Andrew, perhaps?). The
Journalist-in-Space program would have joined Teacher-in-Space;
Artist-in-Space was likely next, and perhaps Writer-in-Space and even
Boy Scout-in-Space. In such a scenario it seems more likely than not
that Dennis Tito would have been able to persuade NASA to take him up,
and quite possibly for a price more akin to the $40,000 McDonnell
Douglas paid for each of Charles Walker's three flights rather than
the $20 million to Russia.

NASA flew nine shuttle flights in 1985, a rate it would never hit
again although it flew eight per year several times in the
1990s. Without losing Challenger, how many flights could NASA have
expected to have flown a year? I understand it was contemplating
perhaps two dozen a year with the four shuttles; was such a pace
feasible? If not that many, a dozen? 15? Would the agency order a
fifth shuttle with such demand?

--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/> PERTH ----> *

[bob haller]

it might have been a wonderful experience. as long as a high flight
rate didnt cause a different loss. i think that should be the premise
of your question.

without any major accident what could the flight rate have been?

i seem to rember post challenger findings of lots of killer type
issues being found and fixed. perhaps like apollo one a accident
improved the program?

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-10 09:15:13 +0000, Yeechang Lee said:

> In retrospect we know that the O-ring issue that destroyed Challenger
> was inevitable. It had almost happened in earlier flights and would
> likely have happened on some winter day sooner or later. That said,
> let's say it doesn't ever happen. Maybe because it's diagnosed, or
> NASA and Thiokol listen to Boisjoly and require a certain outside
> temperature for launches, or NASA just never schedules a launch on
> that cold a day.

The relatively simple joint heaters would have been enough to resume
flying while the field joint was redesigned, I think.

> NASA flew nine shuttle flights in 1985,

…and came 15 seconds away from a tenth on December 18, 1985.

> a rate it would never hit
> again although it flew eight per year several times in the
> 1990s. Without losing Challenger, how many flights could NASA have
> expected to have flown a year?

If Challenger had not been destroyed (say, the windshear did not cause
the leak to reopen at altitude), and the severe damage of the o-rings
was found after SRB recovery, this should have been sufficient for
Thiokol's engineers to effectivdely force a moratorium on Shuttle
launches until the joint heaters could be implemented, resuming flying
say in 1987. During that time, the Shuttle program could well have
caught its breath and built up a stockpile of spare parts that would
have made meeting the flight rate somewhat easier (this was done after
Challenger.) I think realistically the program would have topped out
around 15-16 per year, 12 from KSC and 3 or 4 from SLC-6.

> I understand it was contemplating
> perhaps two dozen a year with the four shuttles; was such a pace
> feasible?

No. External Tank production would probably have peaked around 18 per
year. Michoud could handle a little more, but I doubt they would have
really pushed that hard. They'd have reduced the flight rate to keep
things under control.

> If not that many, a dozen? 15?

Probably, if they funded a third OPF at KSC (without sacrificing SLC-6.)

> Would the agency order a
> fifth shuttle with such demand?

No, they would have backed out of the commercial market anyway,
relieving pressure on the 24-per-year goal. Arianespace would have
taken more commercial payloads regardless of Challenger.

Brian

[Val Kraut]

"If not that many, a dozen? 15? Would the agency order a
> fifth shuttle with such demand?

Someplace I have a zerox of a US Senate Letter detailing the proposed
Shuttle Capabilities - $10M per launch, 2 week turnaround, 66 launches a
year. Sixty Six launches a year means Florida's weather would have had to
really cooperate. There were artists pictures of shuttles being loaded by a
crane and three ground crew. Just like a 474 freighter going out of Kennedy
Airport. Everything would go up on shuttles, They never came close. The Air
Force was to have two dedicated vehicles, which were never built as they
ducked out of the program partially blaming serious faults at SLC-6 that had
been incorporated to keep the environmentalists happy, and finally the
Challenger disaster that really denied them required access to space. The
Titan IV motto was "Assured Access to Space". The shuttle program was doomed
from the start by the great expectations of our politicians who wouldn't
spend the real dollars required and a NASA who went along.

But even if all went well as planned, Enterprise was refurbished for space
(but is was too heavy), NASA bought 1 more and the Air Force Bought 2, and
Challenger didn't explode - so you'd only have about twice as many - all
with the same faults.
Val Kraut

[Val Kraut]

">> In retrospect we know that the O-ring issue that destroyed Challenger
>> was inevitable. It had almost happened in earlier flights and would
>> likely have happened on some winter day sooner or later.

Supposedly there were partial burn throughs on recovered boosters - but NASA
didn't wake up to the real potential until they actually lost a vehicle.
There was an interesting article on the mind set people get into - Hey
worked the last 24 times we did it - we're on a roll!

And on Colombia, some said let's get one of the Recon birds to look at the
tiles - and again it was dismissed.

Go back and look at how long some satellites sat at SLC-4 being proscessed -
this itself would have impacted the same satellites if they were launched at
SLC-6

Val Kraut

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-11 18:44:14 +0000, Val Kraut said:

> "If not that many, a dozen? 15? Would the agency order a
>> fifth shuttle with such demand?
>
> Someplace I have a zerox of a US Senate Letter detailing the proposed
> Shuttle Capabilities - $10M per launch, 2 week turnaround, 66 launches
> a year.

I've never seen a reference to more than 50 launches per year, which
was (and still is) widely reported as "almost once a week". But even 50
was impossible with the Shuttle design and infrastructure as it was
actually built, because Michould could crank out no more than 20-22
External Tanks per year, so there were certainly never serious plans
for once-a-week flights. This is all perfectly acceptable, because
there was never the slightest chance there would be more than 50
payloads per year requiring launches, nevermind two or three payloads
on each of those 50 launches. Even if Ariane had never gotten a
foothold.

Getting a good read on how many Shuttle Orbiters NASA wanted, and when,
is pretty hard. Numbers ranged from 10 to 4. But once construction
started, NASA had to fight just to get four Orbiters. Discovery and
Atlantis were not finally approved until late 1979, the threat of not
getting the lighter Discovery and Atlantis drove the decision to
upgrade STA-099 instead of OV-101 as the second spaceworthy Orbiter.

> But even if all went well as planned, Enterprise was refurbished for
> space (but is was too heavy),

Enterprise would have been about the same as Columbia, maybe a little
lighter. It could easily have handled Spacelab and HS-376 deployment
missions, just as Columbia did. And note that despite being the
heaviest Orbiter, Columbia actually launched the heaviest payload of
the Shuttle program: the Chandra AXAF/IUS. But everything useful was
yanked out of Enterprise and installed in Challenger, so there really
was no point to refurbishing Enterprise once the decision was made to
move to STA-099 (renamed OV-099 Challenger) in 1978.

[Val Kraut]

> I've never seen a reference to more than 50 launches per year, which
> was (and still is) widely reported as "almost once a week". But even 50
> was impossible with the Shuttle design and infrastructure as it was
> actually built, because Michould could crank out no more than 20-22
> External Tanks per year, so there were certainly never serious plans for
> once-a-week flights. This is all perfectly acceptable, because there was
> never the slightest chance there would be more than 50 payloads per year
> requiring launches, nevermind two or three payloads

You have to remember the early dreams of shuttle utilization that included
much more manned operation and things like large space structures, beam
builders, orbiting power stations etc that were being seriously studied at
the time. The Shuttle was supposed to privide really cheap access for major
new space programs. Grumman, as an example, actually had a working prototype
beam builder that would ride in the shuttle bay and extrude and spot weld
long lightweight beam assemblies.

Val Kraut

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-11 18:53:22 +0000, Val Kraut said:

> ">> In retrospect we know that the O-ring issue that destroyed Challenger
>>> was inevitable. It had almost happened in earlier flights and would
>>> likely have happened on some winter day sooner or later.
>
> Supposedly there were partial burn throughs on recovered boosters - but
> NASA didn't wake up to the real potential until they actually lost a
> vehicle. There was an interesting article on the mind set people get
> into - Hey worked the last 24 times we did it - we're on a roll!

Not "supposedly", it is well documented. My point is that STS-51L
nearly got away with it. The o-ring failure did not cause the disaster
alone. Had the windshear at T+55 seconds or so not reopened the leak
(this was the strongest windshear the Shuttle has ever experienced,
before or after Challenger), Challenger might have squeaked by and
survived. But that level of damage, with *both* o-rings having failed
(a first) would certainly have given the engineers the ammunition they
needed to suspend flights until a fix could be implemented. NASA would
have screamed bloody murder about missing the Galileo and ISPM
deadlines, but they would have been out of their "the backups kept us
safe" counter-arguments. The engineers would finally have their
evidence that the design was unsafe, which is what they didn't have in
hand on the night of January 27-28, 1986.

An interesting what-if.

Brian

[David Spain]

Brian Thorn wrote:
> Not "supposedly", it is well documented. My point is that STS-51L nearly
> got away with it. The o-ring failure did not cause the disaster alone.
> Had the windshear at T+55 seconds or so not reopened the leak (this was
> the strongest windshear the Shuttle has ever experienced, before or
> after Challenger), Challenger might have squeaked by and survived. But
> that level of damage, with *both* o-rings having failed (a first) would
> certainly have given the engineers the ammunition they needed to suspend
> flights until a fix could be implemented.

The other possibility, Thiokol could have stuck to their guns about not
launching in under 51 deg F conditions. 51-L would have been delayed a few
days until the weather warmed up, then they might not have had any O-ring
failures. NASA and Thiokol might have continued operating within uncertain
zones of reliability until the next time a limit was pushed.

However IIRC, the joint design was under review and a parallel effort was
underway to fix it. It is an interesting speculation that had Thiokol
management stood by their engineer's original higher temperature limit
recommendation at the telecon, if that alone would have been enough to buy
enough time to allow the fix to be implemented w/o a disaster.

Given the NASA mindset at the time however, it seems likely it would have just
moved the Crit-1 failure from SRB case joints to somewhere else.

Dave

[Mike DiCenso]

On Feb 10, 7:56 pm, Brian Thorn <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> On 2012-02-10 09:15:13 +0000, Yeechang Lee said:
>
> > In retrospect we know that the O-ring issue that destroyed Challenger
> > was inevitable. It had almost happened in earlier flights and would
> > likely have happened on some winter day sooner or later. That said,
> > let's say it doesn't ever happen. Maybe because it's diagnosed, or
> > NASA and Thiokol listen to Boisjoly and require a certain outside
> > temperature for launches, or NASA just never schedules a launch on
> > that cold a day.
>
> The relatively simple joint heaters would have been enough to resume
> flying while the field joint was redesigned, I think.
>
> > NASA flew nine shuttle flights in 1985,
>
> …and came 15 seconds away from a tenth on December 18, 1985.

In calender year terms, Brian. They actually flew 10 missions within a
one year span from STS-51-C launched on January 24, 1985 to STS-61-C
which launched January 12, 1986. Had STS-51-L not been delayed by
STS-61-C, it would have been 11 in 12 months, and Challenger would
have been launched in warmer weather, thus a launch failure would not
likely have occurred.

Also along similar thinking; Discovery, which launched four times in
1985, actually had launched six times in a one year period from first
flight on August 30, 1984 to it's last pre-Challenger flight on August
27, 1985. So theoretically you could have orbiters doing 4-6 flights a
year, if dedicated OPFs were available. Say one OPF at Vandenburg, and
three at KSC, which allows all four vehicles to be processed
simultaneously. That means between 12 and 18 flights a year, if ET and
SRB production and processing permits it. Atlantis between STS-51-J
and and STS-61-B had demonstrated a 55 day turnaround between flights
(45 days minus the days lost by ferrying Atlantis between Edwards and
KSC), so ramping up to 7 flights for one orbiter was theoretically
doable back then. Columbia probably would never be able to manage more
than 4-5 flights a year given her history of being chronically
stricken with technical issues compared to the other orbiters.

> > a rate it would never hit
> > again although it flew eight per year several times in the
> > 1990s. Without losing Challenger, how many flights could NASA have
> > expected to have flown a year?
>
> If Challenger had not been destroyed (say, the windshear did not cause
> the leak to reopen at altitude), and the severe damage of the o-rings
> was found after SRB recovery, this should have been sufficient for

> Thiokol's engineers to effectively force a moratorium on Shuttle

> launches until the joint heaters could be implemented, resuming flying
> say in 1987. During that time, the Shuttle program could well have
> caught its breath and built up a stockpile of spare parts that would
> have made meeting the flight rate somewhat easier (this was done after
> Challenger.) I think realistically the program would have topped out
> around 15-16 per year, 12 from KSC and 3 or 4 from SLC-6.

Agreed, though SLC-6 would have likely put a huge damper on things for
a while once the actual fueled testing of Columbia at that facility
revealed the flaws there.

> >  I understand it was contemplating
> > perhaps two dozen a year with the four shuttles; was such a pace
> > feasible?
>
> No. External Tank production would probably have peaked around 18 per
> year. Michoud could handle  a little more, but I doubt they would have
> really pushed that hard. They'd have reduced the flight rate to keep
> things under control.

They'd have had no choice, looking back on it. There were other
technical issues that would have forced delays or flight rate
reduction or caused a catastrophic loss.

> >  If not that many, a dozen? 15?
>
> Probably, if they funded a third OPF at KSC (without sacrificing SLC-6.)
>
> > Would the agency order a
> > fifth shuttle with such demand?
>
> No, they would have backed out of the commercial market anyway,
> relieving pressure on the 24-per-year goal. Arianespace would have
> taken more commercial payloads regardless of Challenger.

Why? STS had huge cargo capacity for most of the then existing
satellite classes. Just load up a bunch of satellites into one mission
as was done for STS-41-D.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Enterprise was studied several times for refurbishment to spaceworth
condition. The last time was in 1995-1996 as an automated freighter
for heavy-lift space station missions. But as always, the issue and
cost of taking Enterprise apart as well as shipping everything back to
the vendors for rehab always got in the way. Lucky for NASA that it
took the opportunity to invest in the structural spares while building
Discovery and Atlantis that allowed Endeavour to be built.

The interesting thing about all this alternate universe thinking is
what would have happened, if no Challenger accident occured, and then
Buran and Energia came online in 1989.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

There are other technical issues that would've slowed flight rates or
caused a launch failure. In hindsight, the ET foam loss from the bipod
ramp at those flight rates could have caused a loss of an orbiter as
happened eventually to Columbia. The early SSMEs were another
problematic issue with turbine blade cracks and so on.
-Mike

[bob haller]

NASA should of made enterprise flight worthy, at least as a automated
freight hauler.

this would of brought lots of support for nasa and shuttles, remants
of this may have kept the program going even today. if enterprise
would of been flown automated the remaing orbiters could be too.

even with the columbia loss the program may have survived

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-14 19:06:13 +0000, Mike DiCenso said:

Agreed, though SLC-6 would have likely put a huge damper on things for

a while once the actual fueled testing of Columbia at that facility

revealed the flaws there.

I think that problem was trumped up by an Air Force that wanted out of Shuttle at all costs. This would not have caused significant launch delays.

No. External Tank production would probably have peaked around 18 per

year. Michoud could handle  a little more, but I doubt they would have

really pushed that hard. They'd have reduced the flight rate to keep

things under control.

They'd have had no choice, looking back on it. There were other

technical issues that would have forced delays or flight rate

reduction or caused a catastrophic loss.

I really don't think any of the other problems rose to the level of the SRB field joint flaws, which had been showing signs of failure since STS-2. The other issues, like the Quick Disconnect, were theoretical or laboratory problems only, not actually seen in the real world. Fixes could have been implemented over time, just as the SSME and brake improvements were pre- and post-Challenger.

The biggest threat to flight rate was the cannibalization and spare parts issue, but as I wrote, that could have been resolved during the say, one year standdown while the field joint heaters are implemented, pending the full capture-feature redesign to follow a year or two later.

 If not that many, a dozen? 15?

Probably, if they funded a third OPF at KSC (without sacrificing SLC-6.)

Would the agency order a

fifth shuttle with such demand?

No, they would have backed out of the commercial market anyway,

relieving pressure on the 24-per-year goal. Arianespace would have

taken more commercial payloads regardless of Challenger.

Why? STS had huge cargo capacity for most of the then existing

satellite classes. Just load up a bunch of satellites into one mission

as was done for STS-41-D.

It was proving complicated to get all the payloads ready at the same time. 41D itself was a an abberation caused by the cancelation of 41E (or was it 41F?) leading to that flight being combined with 41D after the RSLS abort in June. This is a continuing problem even today for Ariane 5, which is why all indications are that Ariane 6 will be an EELV-like one-at-a-time launcher. I suspect that even without Challenger, Shuttle would have seen a major decline in commercial payload launches, and NASA would not have complained all that much about Ariane 4 taking that business. Congress would have complained about the higher costs due to lower flight rate, but NASA would just have said "Sorry, Arianespace is underbidding us" and quietly walked away.

Brian

[bob haller]

well the original plans for KSC included pad 39C as a matter of fact i
have seen a photo of a sign with C included.

perhaps a additional pad would of been built?

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-15 01:56:55 +0000, bob haller said:

It was proving complicated to get all the payloads ready at the same

time. 41D itself was a an abberation caused by the cancelation of 41E

(or was it 41F?) leading to that flight being combined with 41D after

the RSLS abort in June. This is a continuing problem even today for

Ariane 5, which is why all indications are that Ariane 6 will be an

EELV-like one-at-a-time launcher. I suspect that even without

Challenger, Shuttle would have seen a major decline in commercial

payload launches, and NASA would not have complained all that much

about Ariane 4 taking that business. Congress would have complained

about the higher costs due to lower flight rate, but NASA would just

have said "Sorry, Arianespace is underbidding us" and quietly walked

away.

Brian

well the original plans for KSC included pad 39C as a matter of fact i

have seen a photo of a sign with C included.

They actually planned four pads at KSC. Four of everything, in fact:

Four High Bays in the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Four Mobile Launchers.

Four Firing Rooms in the Launch Control Center.

Four Launch Pads.

This was because originally they were expecting Earth Orbit Rendezvous to be the mode of travel to the Moon, and they thought that would mean two Saturn V-class launches per mission. So four of everything meant two missions could be prepped simultaneously.

When Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was chosen instead, the fourth of everything was defunded, with three of everything still going forward. A year or two later, Pad 39C and the third Firing Room wer also canceled, but we still got three High Bays in the VAB and three Mobile Launchers.

perhaps a additional pad would of been built?

The logjam wasn't the launch pads, it was the Orbiter Processing Facilites. KSC launched ten Shuttle flights in a one-year period (Jan 85-Jan 86) all from Pad 39A.

But neither additional OPFs or Pads would have solved the problem of finding three major payloads ready to launch at the same time.

Brian

[Brian Thorn]

On 2012-02-14 21:03:51 +0000, bob haller said:

> NASA should of made enterprise flight worthy, at least as a automated
> freight hauler.

Too expensive. Enterprise was never finished for spaceflight, and the
parts that it did have which were usable were pulled out and installed
in Challenger. Refurbishing Enterprise would have been no less
expensive than building a new Orbiter. And once you're talking that
kind of money, you have to start to question the best bang for the
buck. Shuttle-C or something like it would have been more useful for
about the same amount of money.

> this would of brought lots of support for nasa and shuttles, remants
> of this may have kept the program going even today. if enterprise
> would of been flown automated the remaing orbiters could be too.
>
> even with the columbia loss the program may have survived

Shuttle doesn't make sense without the humans onboard. If you just want
to launch an unmanned satellite, Atlas and Delta did the same job at
far, far lower cost. It is only because you are doing science
experiments, assembly or crew transfer that using Shuttle makes sense
(and even that is strongly disputed).

Brian

[Mike DiCenso]

On Feb 15, 9:57 am, Brian Thorn <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> Shuttle doesn't make sense without the humans onboard. If you just want
> to launch an unmanned satellite, Atlas and Delta did the same job at
> far, far lower cost. It is only because you are doing science
> experiments, assembly or crew transfer that using Shuttle makes sense
> (and even that is strongly disputed).

Not necessarily, having humans onboard an orbiter is all well in good,
but an automated orbiter can carry more cargo to and from space
without risking astronaut lives for "milk run" duty. I recall that
Rockwell estimated an automated orbiter could carry an additional
15.000 lbs (6,818 kg) without all the gear and crew supplies. And
that's the other thing you forgot is that STS' big advantage is being
able to return huge amounts of cargo from space, so a light-weight
automated orbiter hauling to space and back a fully filled MPLM is
priceless for ISS logistics. The big issue would be docking an
automated orbiter, but then Space Station Freedom plans often included
docking orbiters using the SSRMS, so that's not insurmountable.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

On Feb 14, 4:50 pm, Brian Thorn <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> On 2012-02-14 19:06:13 +0000, Mike DiCenso said:
>
>
>
> > Agreed, though SLC-6 would have likely put a huge damper on things for
> > a while once the actual fueled testing of Columbia at that facility
> > revealed the flaws there.
>
> I think that problem was trumped up by an Air Force that wanted out of
> Shuttle at all costs. This would not have caused significant launch
> delays.

True, but in an alternate reality where Challenger never happened,
that'd would have been much, much more difficult.

> >> No. External Tank production would probably have peaked around 18 per
> >> year. Michoud could handle a little more, but I doubt they would have
> >> really pushed that hard. They'd have reduced the flight rate to keep
> >> things under control.
>
> > They'd have had no choice, looking back on it. There were other
> > technical issues that would have forced delays or flight rate
> > reduction or caused a catastrophic loss.
>
> I really don't think any of the other problems rose to the level of the
> SRB field joint flaws, which had been showing signs of failure since
> STS-2. The other issues, like the Quick Disconnect, were theoretical or
> laboratory problems only, not actually seen in the real world. Fixes
> could have been implemented over time, just as the SSME and brake
> improvements were pre- and post-Challenger.
>
> The biggest threat to flight rate was the cannibalization and spare
> parts issue, but as I wrote, that could have been resolved during the
> say, one year standdown while the field joint heaters are implemented,
> pending the full capture-feature redesign to follow a year or two later.

All true, but if the O-ring issue had been taken more seriously and
flights delayed here and there to avoid inclement weather, the likely
scenario would be that other issues might have caused a catastrophic
failure that would've possibly killed a crew or at least caused some
really scary moments. And as we know now, with that kind of flight
rate, a Columbia-style accident could well have occurred in the early
1990s, rather than the early 2000s. Of course it's hard to say what
would happen since launch turnaround of a rescue orbiter would be far
faster than happened in Real Life because of the post-Challenger
induced changes, so such a thing might have had less effect on things.

So many variables.

>
> >>> If not that many, a dozen? 15?
>
> >> Probably, if they funded a third OPF at KSC (without sacrificing SLC-6.)
>
> >>> Would the agency order a
> >>> fifth shuttle with such demand?
>
> >> No, they would have backed out of the commercial market anyway,
> >> relieving pressure on the 24-per-year goal. Arianespace would have
> >> taken more commercial payloads regardless of Challenger.
>
> > Why? STS had huge cargo capacity for most of the then existing
> > satellite classes. Just load up a bunch of satellites into one mission
> > as was done for STS-41-D.
>
> It was proving complicated to get all the payloads ready at the same

> time. 41D itself was a an aberration caused by the cancellation of 41E

> (or was it 41F?) leading to that flight being combined with 41D after
> the RSLS abort in June. This is a continuing problem even today for
> Ariane 5, which is why all indications are that Ariane 6 will be an
> EELV-like one-at-a-time launcher. I suspect that even without
> Challenger, Shuttle would have seen a major decline in commercial
> payload launches, and NASA would not have complained all that much
> about Ariane 4 taking that business. Congress would have complained
> about the higher costs due to lower flight rate, but NASA would just
> have said "Sorry, Arianespace is underbidding us" and quietly walked
> away.

I doubt it. The trend was towards larger and larger individual
comsats, which would require fewer flights, but would most likely have
wound up taking up most or all of the payload bay, regardless if it
took up all the lift capacity. Although the Shuttle being more
successful than the Prime Timeline, could have resulted in more
satellites being built like the Leasat series. There also would have
been more LDEF missions, more EURECA, SPAS, SFUs, Spartan, satellite
repairs (especially Hubble), Spacelabs, Spacehabs, and of course
Freedom or ISS missions much different and earlier than occured in
Reality.
-Mike