Shuttle to ’fly again in March

Press, 17 November 1981, Page 9

Shuttle to ’fly again in March

NZPA Edwards Air Base American space officials, undaunted by having to bring down the Columbia space shuttle nearly three days ahead of schedule, say they plan to launch the craft again in Mid-March. Columbia, which stayed in space only 54 hours on its second mission because of a faulty power generator, is to spend a week orbiting the Earth on its next flight and officials said there were no plans to change the mission significantly. “Columbia came through its second flight in great., shape,” Donald "Deke" Slay- ‘ ton. a former astronaut and the flight test manager, said yesterday.. He said the shuttle, with astronauts Joe Engle and Richard Truly aboard, could have gone its full five days in reasonable safety. “But we would have had to take some drastic steps if we had lost another fuel generator,” he added. The 75-tonne shuttle, the first manned spaceship to return to Earth for a second time, had three generators.’ Mr Slayton said the faulty generator would be examined after Columbia was ferried back to its launching site at Cape Canaveral. Florida. piggy-back on a Boeing 747, probably next Monday. The next flight of Columbia had been set for early March until flight two was delayed six weeks by a series of problems. “We. now plan to have Columbia prepared for launching by the middle of March and we think this date is practical." said George Page, director of shuttle operations at the launching site. Mr Slayton said Columbia was in much better shape than after its first mission last April. But he said that a dozen of the tiles which protect the outside of the shuttle when it drops through a searing heat barrier to. reenter the Earth's atmosphere would have to be replaced. Lost and damaged tiles plagued Columbia’s first mission. but Mr Page said the shuttle did not lose any this time and he believed the tile system was working very well.