Shuttle may make its full flight

Press, 14 November 1981, Page 1

Shuttle may make its full flight

NZPA-ReuterCape Canaveral Space officials are hoping to salvage the full five-day voyage of the space shuttle Columbia despite the loss of a vital fuel cell which caused them to decide to cut the mission by more than half. The officials said yesterday that the shuttle would be brought back to Earth on Sunday morning (New Zealand time) after completing only 54 hours of what had been intended to be a 124hour second mission into space.

However, the flight director, Neil Hutchinson, later held out new hope. He said Columbia was on “minimum mission" status, meaning it could be brought down at any time after 54 hours in orbit.

He said a decision on whether to continue the flight would be made each day. When asked at a press conference if the five-day mission was still a possibility, he replied: “Yes, sir.”

However, he added: “We still don't know’ because there are too many darn variables.” The fuel cell failure came less than seven hours after Columbia’s spectacular blastoff from the Kennedy Space Centre yesterday. Officials said the astronauts, Joe Engle and Richard

Truly, were in no danger and the two began their eighthour sleep on schedule.

Mr Hutchinson said the astronauts were comfortable and “my impression is they are doing just fine and anxious to get as much of the flight done as possible and they’d like to go the full five days."

He said there was also a problem with the cooling system of one of the spacecraft's three auxiliary power units — a problem similar to one which caused the lastminute postponement of Columbia’s scheduled November 4 launch.

The power units supply Columbia’s landing gear and wing flaps, but officials says the spacecraft could land comfortably with only two of them working.

Because of the problems, high priority experiments among Columbia’s cargo of scientific research devices will be brought forward. Top priority will go to experiments with a Canadian-built manipulator arm which can reach out and grab objects in space. When first told from ground control about the faulty fuel cell, the Columbia pilot, Captain Truly, asked: “Do you think we can recover the fuel cell for later?”

“I don't believe we can." the controller replied. “Roger,” said Captain Truly. “Thank you." Before yesterday’s blastoff, Captain Truly celebrated his forty-fourth birthday with Colonel Engle, fellow astronauts, and Space Centre workers at a breakfast party. After, a series of delays, Columbia became the first space ship to go into space for a second time. After its first mission last April it was originally scheduled to fly again in October, but an accident with corrosive fluid forced a postponement until November 4 and then the flight was aborted only 31 seconds before the launch.

Then a problem with data processing equipment delayed yesterday's launch for 2% hours.

When Columbia finally took off, with a belch of red flame and a huge billowing cloud of smoke and steam, it was within three-hundredths of a second of its revised schedule. Television New Zealand will take live coverage of the landing if it takes place early on Sunday beginning at 9.30 a.m. and ending at 10.30 a.m. If the shuttle lands any earlier, T.V.N.Z. will try to record the landing and replay it at 9.30 a.m.