Atlantis Lands After Secret Space Mission

The space shuttle Atlantis coasted to a perfect landing on a dirt runway here Monday, ending a four-day military mission that had been shrouded in secrecy.

It was the first flight of the Atlantis and the second all-military shuttle mission, which resulted in a blackout of communications with the five-man crew and no official word on what the craft did during its 65 orbits of Earth.

The U.S. Air Force even refused to say what course the Atlantis would take as it came over California for a landing, but Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies later reported calls from residents who heard the twin sonic booms that the shuttle makes as it breaks the sound barrier.

Military Bases

Scientific sources said two Defense Satellite Communications Satellites III were launched in the first two days by Atlantis. The satellites will reportedly provide “hardened” or “untappable” communications with military facilities ranging from command airplanes to bases and even units in the field. There is also reportedly a radio transponder to transmit messages from the President to nuclear forces.

In the remainder of the mission, the orbiter reportedly tested the capability of new computer systems for analyzing intelligence data gathered by the spacecraft, defense experts said.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which operates the Atlantis and its three sister shuttles, said the spaceplane generally was in “excellent condition” after its 10 a.m. landing at Rogers dry lakebed.

However, a four-inch, wedge-shaped hole was seen in a tail area, and a few other small holes were found in some of the tiles that enable the spacecraft to withstand the furnace-like heat of re-entry.

All of the problems were considered minor by mission directors. Examination of the landing gear brakes that had suffered severe damage on some previous flights found only a few loose bolts and metal debris in one brake assembly.

In a brief ceremony, shuttle commander Col. Karol Bobko, a veteran of two previous missions, said, “Of course, I can’t say anything about our mission, but I can say Atlantis performed perfectly.”

Five-Man Crew

Army pilot Col. Robert Stewart, a mission specialist on the five-man crew, said, “It was the cleanest first flight of any aircraft I’ve ever seen.”

The Atlantis is scheduled to be ferried back to Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday to prepare for an unclassified scientific flight Nov. 27. The next scheduled shuttle flight is a Challenger mission carrying West German scientific experiments on Oct. 30.