Shuttle lands

Press, 6 September 1983, Page 8

Shuttle lands

NZPA Edwards A.B. The space shuttle Challenger ended a highly successful six-day mission last evening with an unprecedented night landing at the desert, Edwards air base. Swooping in out of the darkness like an enormous glider, Challenger touched down on a brilliantly-lit concrete runway at 7.40 p.m. The shuttle survived the scorching heat of atmospheric entry as touchdown approached. Radio communication was re-established with Challenger after a 14-min-, ute black-out caused by the heat of re-entry, which enclosed the spacecraft in a

cloud of ionised gas that radio signals could not penetrate.

“Roger, Houston, loud and clear, ,r a crewman reported when contact was resumed about 13 minutes from touchdown. The shuttle was on its 97th orbit, 219 km high, when the commander, Captain Richard Truly, fired the ship’s orbital engines for 2% minutes. That slowed the shuttle’s speed about 300 km/h from 28,000 km/h — enough to start its plunge. The burn was on time and normal, Captain Truly reported just before the spaceship went into a communications blackout.

THe weather was perfect in California: clear skies and visibility of more than 10 km. The stars were absolutely brilliant. Xenon beams, equalling the output of 650,000 floodlights, illuminated the approach end of the Edwards runway. The unpowered shuttle, coming in like a glider, had no second chance at landing. Challenger’s path took the ship through the thickening atmosphere across Micronesia, ndrth of Hawaii, and over Santa Barbara on the California coast.