Space Shuttle Crew Arrives for Delayed Launch
Schoolteacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe and her six crew mates flew to Florida Thursday for final preparations before a delayed blastoff Sunday aboard the space shuttle Challenger.
Challenger’s launch on the 25th shuttle mission, the second of 15 planned this year, was postponed Wednesday from Saturday afternoon to Sunday at 12:36 a.m. PST because of bad weather at an emergency landing field in Africa.
The countdown, however, began on time Thursday and the shuttle crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center under a clear sky. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said acceptable weather conditions are expected.
Columbia Returns
At the runway to greet the crew was the shuttle Columbia, which arrived back at the space port atop a NASA transport jet after a two-day flight from Edwards Air Force Base.
The shuttle fliers plan to spend six days in orbit to launch the second shuttle communications satellite and to deploy and later retrieve a small science platform that will spend 40 hours making key observations of Halley’s comet.
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