Space suit taken apart

Press, 20 November 1982, Page 8

Space suit taken apart

NZPA Houston The first of two defective space suits arrived yesterday at the space centre in Houston and engineers started taking it apart to find out what had forced the cancellation of a space walk on the shuttle Columbia’s fifth flight. The suit, which astronaut Dr Bill Lenoir was to have worn in a space walk, was flown to the Johnson Space Centre where a select team of engineers immediately began testing it. A suit that was to have been used by Dr Lenoir’s

space walk partner, Dr Joe Allen, is expected to arrive from California today. Richard Colonna, the head of a team of engineering detectives investigating the problem, said that the group would work through the week-end studying the malfunctions. Dr Allen and Dr Lenoir discovered the broken suit components while preparing for a space walk aboard Columbia. The walk was cancelled and the suits returned to Earth untested. Snace aeencv officials are

anxious to find out and correct the malfunctions to plan a space walk for the next flight of a shuttle, now set for no earlier than January 24. The suits are essential for a solar maximum satellite repair mission set for early 1984. On that flight, an astronaut will fly from the shuttle to a broken satellite using a Buck Rogers-type jetpack. He will stabilise the satellite, which will then be brought into the cargo bay of the shuttle. Repairs will be made there bv two suited astronauts.