sjb (06/28/82)
Columbia experienced a few problems with its experiments. Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield had problems activating the experiments, including the first Getaway Special, designed at the Utah State University. Also, one of her steering jets experienced a small leakage, but the shutdown of it and its three related ones will not affect the flight. The shuttle's orbit is five miles lower than projected, due to the fact that more fuel was consumed in getting it there; this will not affect the flight either, but she will land 15 minutes earlier. The rain that soaked the ship yesterday will be baked out of the tiles when the ship is turned belly towards the sun. NASA has also reported that both SRB's have been located -- 3,500 feet under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. They would like to get them back, to find out why they sank, but they have not yet decided if it would be cost-efficient; it is not known if they could be re-used after that much exposure. It costs $25 million for a new one and $7 to refurbish a used one. the six used previously are now being refurbished. Factors that could have caused the sinking of these two include the fact that their parachutes were not jettisoned and these parachutes were those used on STS-1.
atbowler (06/29/82)
Why is it neccessary to bake out the water by facing the sun? IN that vacuum won't the tiles simply be "freeze dried"? There should be enough heat leakage from the rest of the shuttle to supply the energy, and any spot that the water could leak into is obviously exposed to vacuum.
sjb (06/29/82)
The problem with doing that is all the water (or ice) is left there. This adds weight. NASA says it's the extra weight from the water which may have caused the shuttle not to attain its expected orbit. Also, it could cause some handling problems, or maybe other things.