ARG@SU-AI (12/29/82)
From: Ron Goldman <ARG at SU-AI>
AM-Space Shuttle, Bjt,420
Largest Communications Satellite Being Readied For Launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The world's largest communications
satellite, weighing 5,000 pounds, was being readied Tuesday for the first
flight of the space shuttle Challenger, although the date of the launch
remained uncertain because of a leak in the ship's hydrogen system.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says only that the
launch will be no earlier than Jan. 27. Even that depends on whether
engineers find the leak that flooded Challenger's engine compartment
with hydrogen during its first test-firing Dec. 18.
Only 50 cargo specialists were at work this week; efforts to find
the leak are not to resume until Jan. 3.
NASA spokesman Mark Hess said the engine test was normal but ''until
we determine the source of the leak we will hold off picking the
launch date.''
At launch the shuttle has 383,000 gallons of hydrogen in its fuel
tank. The hydrogen combines with 143,000 gallons of oxygen to help
power the ship into orbit, assisted by the two solid rockets that
flank the craft.
The satellite the shuttle and its four-man crew are to carry into
orbit is one of three NASA will use for all its spacecraft
communications. When the three are in place, NASA will be able to
close many of its ground stations and still maintain contact with
orbiting shuttles more than 85 percent of the time. The current system
of ground stations allows contact, both voice and data, only about 20
percent of the time.
As part of the program to get the shuttle ready for flight, NASA had
scheduled two weeks of further engine tests beginning Jan. 3 and it
is during that time that the leak tests will be made.
Hess said there are dozens of valves in the complex engine
compartment and any one could be leaking.
''The engines themselves look terrific,'' Hess said. During the 22nd
firing in December, the engines put out 90 percent of their power for
20 seconds.
The crew of the sixth space shuttle flight is commander Paul Weitz,
pilot Karol Bobko and mission specialists Dr. Story Musgrave and
Donald Peterson.
The flight has been extended from two to five days to get in a space
walk by Musgrave and Peterson. The walk was to have been taken by two
mission specialists in November but was scrubbed because of trouble
with their space suits.