Satellite Drifts Aimlessly After Leaving Shuttle

A mammoth communications satellite went awry after its launching from the space shuttle Discovery on Saturday, leaving space agency officials to ponder a hasty rescue mission.

John Cox, National Aeronautics and Space Administration flight director, said a decision on a rescue effort by the shuttle crew would be made today. The mission, which might include sending a spaceman outside the craft, would probably occur on Tuesday.

The satellite, built and owned by Hughes Communications Services Inc., drifted helplessly about 40 miles from the shuttle after a crucial switch apparently failed to ignite a rocket designed to push the satellite into higher orbit.

The satellite is insured for between $80 million and $85 million.

Rescue Difficult

Late Saturday, Cox said a rescue would be made difficult by the lack of equipment and specific training of the shuttle crew for such a mission. And, he said, approaching the satellite, which is revolving twice a minute, would be risky because of the danger posed by its unfired rocket engine.

However, Cox said three separate teams at NASA were evaluating responses to the problem. One approach would involve placing an astronaut on the shuttle’s robot arm to pull the lever engaging the satellite’s firing mechanism. If that is deemed too dangerous, NASA officials said they might try a less ambitious photo reconnaissance of the malfunctioning satellite.

Of the space walk approach, Cox said: “If you ask, ‘Can we do it?’ I’d say we’re not in any territory we don’t belong in.”

The Discovery crew includes the first congressional observer to fly in space, Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah), chairman of the committee that oversees the NASA budget.

Marvin Mixon, a vice president of Hughes, said the shuttle crew would have 45 minutes to make a getaway if they succeed in activating the satellite’s firing device. After 45 minutes the rocket’s engine would fire.

Before such a maneuver was attempted, he said, the crew would make a visual inspection to make sure the activating lever was still in the locked position.

The Hughes satellite is a huge relay station specifically designed to be launched by the space shuttle. It measures 14 feet in diameter and weighs seven tons, including its self-contained rocket.

Known as Leasat 3, the satellite was launched to become part of the Defense Department’s worldwide communications system. The department has contracted to pay $83.75 million for Leasat’s services over the next five years.

Once eased out of the shuttle’s payload compartment, the satellite was designed to extend an antenna, begin a rapid spin with small jets and then lift itself into high orbit using its own rocket.

None of those things happened, and Steve Dorfman, president of Hughes Communications, said the failure most likely was caused by a four-inch-long lever located on Leasat’s exterior surface. The lever should have been pulled outward automatically during the ejection from the shuttle, he said, triggering the sequence of maneuvers.

“We are determined to do everything possible, within reason, to make this a successful mission--and that includes a rescue,” Dorfman said.

Meanwhile, flight director Cox said most other aspects of the shuttle mission were running smoothly. The only other defect, he said, was the partial failure of a high-frequency antenna on the Discovery. Its duties have been shifted to other equipment.

The mission also continued to be unusually quiet, with little conversation between the crew and NASA’s control center in Houston. Thus far virtually nothing has been heard from Garn.

Asked if the senator has been “confined to his room,” Cox said that Garn was free to move about the shuttle but that he had been kept busy with his own experiment. Garn is performing several experiments related to space sickness.

Others on the mission are NASA astronauts Karol J. Bobko, the commander, Donald E. Williams, M. Rhea Seddon, S. David Griggs and Jeffrey A. Hoffman, and civilian engineer Charles D. Walker.

The Hughes satellite is the third to fail during shuttle missions. Two satellites that malfunctioned after being launched on a mission in 1984 were retrieved by the shuttle later in the year and brought back to Earth.

A similar retrieval for the Hughes satellite has been ruled out.