Shuttle Countdown Begins
The space shuttle Discovery’s countdown to blastoff began today to set the stage for launch Saturday of a daring spacewalk mission to hot-wire a costly satellite marooned in space.
The mission will deploy three communications satellites and rendezvous with an $85-million Syncom relay station marooned in space since its launch from a shuttle in April. At that time, an automatic timer failed to engage to fire the relay station’s solid-rocket motor, leaving the craft thousands of miles below its operational altitude.
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