yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) (06/15/89)
This is the Kennedy Space Center Broadcast News Service prepared at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, June 15th. In Columbia's hangar at the orbiter processing facility, the orbiter is powered-up for electrical testing. A functional test of the Inertial Measurement Unit, the orbiter's guidance system, is in work. A test of the flash evaporator cooling system was completed last night. Hydraulic leak checks are also complete. Orbiter hydraulic power has been raised in preparation for a functional test of the landing gear this evening. This test was originally planned for yesterday, but was rescheduled to allow for some additional fit checks of the surrounding tile to be made. Hydraulic power will remain up for a test of the brakes on Friday or Saturday. Also scheduled for this weekend is another leak check of the crew module. The installation of the head-up display on the flight control panel has been finished. The orbiter's mid-body closeouts continue and seven of 13 bays are closed. The re-test for leaks on the seal surrounding the #1 main engine fuel turbopump is scheduled for today. Other routine propulsion system leak checks and system checkout continues. In other work, technicians continue to install thermal blankets in the orbiter's mid-body area, and the routine tile repair work continues. Columbia is scheduled to be moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building no earlier than the night of June 29th. In the Vehicle Assembly Building, final checkout and closeout work continues on the stacked boosters and the mated external tank to be used for Columbia's launch. Meanwhile, in the SAEF-2 planetary spacecraft checkout facility work continues to load 1,300 pounds of nitrogen textroxide into the spacecraft's two oxidizer tanks. Following next week, 800 pounds of hydrazine fuel will be loaded into another pair of tanks. The propellants will be used for control of the spacecraft enroute to Jupiter and for planetary mission operations. NASA has released an updated manifest which reflects dates for upcoming missions. STS-28 with Columbia remains targeted for July 31st; Atlantis with Galileo is scheduled for October 12th; Discovery will fly on November 19th on a Department of Defense mission; Columbia will be launched again on December 18th for the SYNCOM IV- LDEF Retrieval mission; another DoD flight is scheduled for February 1, 1990 using the Space Shuttle Atlantis; Hubbble Space Telescope will be launched aboard Discovery on March 26th; Columbia will fly with Astro and the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope on April 26th; and Atlantis will deploy the Gamma Ray Observatory on June 4th. From the NASA Kennedy Space Center, this is George Diller.