sjb (06/29/82)
The space shuttle is still soaring around the Earth today, and the Getaway Special still has not been activated. Astronauts Hartsfield and Mattingly are to try again today to start it; apparently, there is a problem with a remote control system that is preventing them from doing so. Meanwhile, NASA has attributed the sinking of the SRB'S to malfunctions in their decelerator systems (i.e. parachutes) They say that unless they can find out what happened and correct it in the next pair, STS-5 may have to be delayed. They do not want to lose another pair.
sjb (06/30/82)
With Utah State University's Getaway Special still not working, astronauts Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield wound up their third day in space today. They did successfully turn on (and later off) a package from McDonnel Douglas that tested the separation of compounds in micro gravity. McDonnel Douglas spokesmen said that the tests had gone very well and, depending on analysis of the data, they may want to put up an orbiting pharmacy. Meanwhile, the RMS (Canadarm) went through its hardest test to date, lifting and carrying a contamination monitor around the cargo bay; during the test, Mattingly fired steering jets to see how the arm reacted, just like in STS-3. In other news, NASA has said that ships are now above the spot where the SRB's lie on the ocean floor. The ships will send down remote TV's to take pictures of the empty boosters. While NASA has said that the shuttle will not fly until they know why the boosters sank, a spokesman today said he envisioned no delay for STS-5.
sjb (09/17/82)
The Columbia sailed through its mock mission yesterday with flying colors, making a scheduled simulated emergency abort (wow, all these adjectives!) landing at EAFB. Today, NASA said that plans to move the shuttle to pad 39A on Tuesday, the 21st, were going right on schedule, and the launch is still scheduled for 11 November. On Monday, NASA will pick the mission specialists for STS-9, scheduled to blast off on 20 September, 1983. STS-3 will see the first non-astronauts on the shuttle and also the first foreigners. Its payload will be Spacelab.
alb@alice.UUCP (06/22/83)
Crippen turned the shuttle first towards the sun, then away from the sun, then towards the Earth today in an effort to control the temperature on SPAS-1, the West German satellite to be deployed and retrieved tomorrow. Meanwhile, Anik-C and Palapa-B, released over the weekend, reached thei intended orbits with no problems. NASA also announced that TDRS-1 should be in the proper orbit by Monday. Conditions at KSC were not favorable today for a landing, and NASA reports that the weather does not look good for either tomorrow or Thursday. Friday, the scheduled landing day, is still iffy.