sjb (07/03/82)
A second heater in Columbia's fuel cell system failed yesterday, but officials switched to a backup, just as they did a couple days ago when the first one failed. Each full cell has two heaters, which control the pressure of liquid hydrogen flowing into the cell. Officials said that even if the backup heaters were to fail, there would be no problem with generating power. Columbia is scheduled to land tomorrow at 1210 EDT. CBS will begin coverage from EAFB at 1200; ABC will show the landing from 1200 to 1215, Reagan and the astronauts from 1245 to 1300, and Reagan's space policy speech from 1345 to 1405. NBC does not plan to have any live coverage of the event. A White House spokesman said yesterday that Reagan's speech will call for a greater American presence in space, but he will stop short of endorsing either a fifth space shuttle or a manned space station. [Funny, I wonder how he plans to have a greater presence if he doesn't want to give us anything to do it with!]