Second Delay of Challenger Flight Possible as Weather Front Moves In

Bad weather, which scrambled the shuttle Columbia’s launching schedule earlier this month, is threatening to prevent Challenger’s scheduled liftoff Sunday with schoolteacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe as a member of the crew, NASA said Friday.

Shuttle meteorologists said a weather front was expected to move into the area Sunday, breaking a string of clear days and bringing clouds and a 30% chance of rain.

Similar conditions caused two of Columbia’s record seven launching postponements.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said that it is counting on a break in the weather during a three-hour launching period that begins at 6:36 a.m. PST.

Bad weather that caused sand to blow across an emergency landing site in Dakar, Senegal, already has postponed the flight by one day. The delay was necessary so that an alternative site, the international airport at Casablanca, Morocco, would be available in daylight in case a problem shortly after liftoff forced the shuttle to cross the Atlantic and land in North Africa.

While the experts kept watch on the weather, McAuliffe and her six crew mates were busy studying the flight plan for the six-day mission and meeting with shuttle officials.

Commander Dick Scobee and pilot Mike Smith, with McAuliffe and Greg Jarvis riding along, practiced landings at the shuttle runway here. They and the other crew members, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ron McNair, had lunch at the crew quarters Friday with spouses and friends.