'The bird is ready to go?

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 6

'The bird is ready to go ?

NZPA-AP Cape Canaveral The space shuttle Discovery, its debut cancelled twice before, was ready to begin its countdown yesterday for a third launch attempt tomorrow, and theships commander said, “We fully intend to make it this time.” The five men and one woman who make up Discovery’s first crew flew to Cape Canaveral, Florida, yesterday, from their training base in Houston, with the countdown to begin a few hours later for a mission that has the heaviest cargo of any shuttle flight. “Once again, it’s good to be back here,” Commander Henry Hartsfield told reporters who greeted the astronauts. “I hope the next time we see you folks it will be about 4000 km from here out in the desert. He referred to the landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California; at the end of the six-day trip. “We fully intend to make it this time,” he said. “The bird is ready to go, and I can guarantee you one thing, the crew is ready and we’re anxious to go.” Discovery, the third ship in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s shuttle fleet, is scheduled to lift off with 20 tonnes of cargo: three commercial communications satellites, a miniature drug-making factory and an experimental solar power panel. It is the heaviest payload yet for a shuttle mission. Commander Hartsfield flew on a shuttle mission in 1982. His crewmates, all space rookies, are pilot Michael Coats; mission specialists Judy Rgnlk.

Steve Hawley and Richard Mullane; and a payload specialist, Charles Walker. Ms Resnik is the second American woman named to a space trip. Mr Hawley is the husband of the first, Sally Ride. Mr Walker is a commercial passenger, an employee of McDonnell Douglas Corporation, who will be operating a device to produce an unidentified drug in weightlessness. The drug will be tested on animals and humans, with McDonnell Douglas and its partner in the venture, Johnson and Johnson, hoping to mass produce it in space later in this decade. The heavy cargo is the result of a N.A.S.A. decision to combine the best features of Discovery’s first two mis-

sions into a single flight in order to maintain the shuttle launch schedule. The decision, after two delays in June, added two communications satellites to the cargo manifest. The original launch attempt on June 25 was scrubbed by a faulty computer nine minutes before the planned lift-off. The next day, a computer commanded a cut-off of the engine start sequence when it detected the failure of a fuel valve with just four seconds to go. “N.A.S.A. officials are ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths per cent sure the shutdown was caused by contamination in the valve’s hydraulic oil,” said Jesse Moore, director of tjie agency’s shuttle pro-

gramme. “The contamination, which is always present, apparently built up as the shuttle sat on the launch pad, so this time the oil will be circulated through the system before lift-off to be sure the shutdown does not recur.” The release of the three communications , satellites have the highest priority on the six-day mission, which is to conclude on September 4 with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base. The satellites are owned by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Satellite Business Systems and Hughes Communications Services, which are paying N.A.S.A. between SUSIO million and SUSI 7 million each to deliver the payloads to orbit.