Astronauts check ‘arm’

Press, 2 September 1983, Page 6

Astronauts check ‘arm’

NZPA-Reuter Cape Canaveral The astronauts on board the orbiting space shuttle Challenger were settling into a busy routine of experiments and tests yesterday, including checking the craft’s cargo-handling “arm.” Yesterday the five man crew deployed a weather and communications satellite for India, achieving the primary commercial goal of their six-day flight.

President Ronald Reagan spoke to the crew yesterday, congratulating them on the success so far of their mission, which began with a

dramatic night-time lift-off, and wishing them good luck.

The mission specialists, Lieutenant Commander Dale Gardner and Lieuten-ant-Colonel Guion Bluford were scheduled to operate the 16 metre Canadian-built robotic arm in order to evaluate its agility and strength.

Captain Richard Truly and the pilot, Commander Daniel Brandenstein were to assist them in using the arm to move a 3383 kg payload — a steel, aluminium and lead dummy spacecraft — twice the weight the arm has handled previously. The arm will be used on

future shuttle flights to deploy and retrieve satellites. Space agency officials said that the satellite deployment, the fifth in the eight shuttle missions so far, went flawlessly and the astronauts were working ahead of schedule.

Officials also said that tests had shown a data relay satellite which malfunctioned earlier this year was working surprisingly well. The satellite is the first part of a system that will improve communications between the ground and shuttles, and is essential to the European spacelab project planned for October.