Another day in space

Press, 12 April 1984, Page 10

Another day in space

NZPA-Reuter Cape Canaveral The crew of the space shuttle Challenger nave been given an extra day to try to repair a disabled satellite which they retrieved from space yester-

day. The crew, one of the least talkative of the-11 shuttle missions, went to sleep without commenting on the extension of their flight from tomorrow to Saturday. Earlier, with fuel reserves running low, they latched on to the satellite Solar Max with the shuttle’s robot arm and placed it on a special work-bench in the cargo hold. Dr George Nelson, who

failed to catch the satellite in a free-flying manoeuvre on Monday, and James van Hoften, were to spend about six hours today working on the satellite in the open cargo bay. It was the first time that a satellite had been recovered in space, although American space officials expect such a task to become routine on future shuttle missions.

Solar Max, launched in 1980 to observe the Sun but out of action for three years, was the first satellite designed for servicing in space. Wearing spacesuits and using special tools, the astronauts were to try to remove two electronic

boxes from Solar Max and replace them with new ones. The most important was Solar Max’s main navigational instrument, which blew three fuses less than a year after its launching. If successful, this will allow six of the satellite’s seven instruments to resume taking observations of the sun. If they have time the astronaut repairmen will also try to change a smaller electronics box which helps to power the seventh instrument

After the repairs Solar Max was due to be repositioned in orbit But if the repairs are unsuccessful it will have to be picked up again and returned to Earth for more work.