3,250-Pound Segment of Challenger Booster Found

Navy salvage crews retrieved a 3,250-pound segment of one of the Challenger’s two solid rocket boosters Sunday as divers returned to the waters to recover more of the shuttle’s shattered crew capsule.

The 6-by-18-foot booster piece, lifted from 400 feet of water about 30 miles northeast of here, is the fifth rocket segment recovered so far. Lt. Cmdr. Deborah Burnette, a Navy spokeswoman, said it is still not known whether the segment is from the right booster, where the explosion is believed to have originated.

Only one of the five booster segments previously recovered was from the right booster, and nothing has been recovered from the section where a seal apparently failed and released hot gases and flames that set off the explosion.

Searchers Hopeful

Burnette said searchers are hopeful that another discovery of right booster debris will provide a path to lead them to the rest of the suspect rocket.

“NASA has given the Navy a list of priorities to be recovered--the two boosters, the external tank and the crew compartment,” Burnette said. “We are not to the stage where there is any contemplation of slowing down or stopping the search.”

Bad weather that hampered the search for two days cleared Sunday, with seas calming to three to four feet and winds at 15 to 20 knots.

Salvage crews began efforts to raise a 4-by-5-foot booster section that appears likely to be a key piece of evidence and another unidentified 10-by-14-foot booster section. The smaller piece was found under 650 feet of water, the larger at a depth of 800 feet.

The Preserver, which is assigned the task of retrieving the Challenger’s crew compartment, resumed search efforts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday but rough seas kept divers on the vessel. Burnette said that diving resumed from the ship Sunday but she did not know when the vessel would return to shore.

Long Wait Expected

Marvin Resnik, the father of astronaut Judith A. Resnik, said in an interview Sunday that the space agency told him to prepare for a long wait, possibly two weeks, before recovery of the crew compartment is completed and the remains of the seven crew members are identified.

“They said they were sorry but they had to be very thorough,” Resnik said.

Astronauts assigned to each of the crew members’ families call them regularly to report on the progress of the recovery effort and the forensic examinations. Different families have at times received conflicting reports.