High Seas Hamper Divers Searching for Shuttle Debris

Battling rising seas, Navy divers on Wednesday returned to the site of the wreckage of the Challenger crew cabin to recover additional remains of the cockpit and the astronauts.

“Diving is marginal,” the Navy salvage ship Preserver radioed to shore shortly after the first divers entered the water at mid-morning.

High Winds and Swells

Twenty-knot winds and five-foot swells hampered debris recovery efforts and made it doubtful that a rocket booster segment that is a potential key to determining what caused the shuttle explosion could be unloaded at the docks for identification.

The salvage ship Stena Workhorse was headed for port carrying that booster segment and other debris. NASA investigators hope the segment includes the lower joint of the right booster, suspected of causing the Jan. 28 explosion.

But Lt. Cmdr. Deborah Burnette, a Navy spokeswoman, said the wreckage could not be unloaded unless the winds subside.

“It’s 22 to 25 knots in port right now, and we can’t offload unless they die down to 15 knots,” she said late Wednesday afternoon.

Rocket Segment Found

Burnette announced the potentially significant recovery of a small segment of the right solid rocket booster from the same area of ocean bottom that the other rocket segment was found.

“What this means is that we have an identified piece of debris from the right solid rocket booster in very close proximity to a critical piece of unidentified (rocket) debris,” Burnette said.

“That is not conclusive proof, but it does give us some added confidence that the . . . piece (from near the booster joint) is from the right (booster),” she said.

It could be several days before the Preserver returns to port with its third load of cargo from Challenger’s crew cabin, Burnette added. Divers were working in the 100-foot-deep water throughout the day Wednesday.

Several miles farther offshore, the Navy contract ship Seward Johnson found what appeared to be several additional solid rocket booster segments, including a parachute and a gyro assembly containing a part number that could help NASA officials determine whether they have found additional debris from the right booster.

“Right now, we have seven pieces of debris. We have recovered five of the seven pieces of debris,” the Seward Johnson reported by radio as it prepared to head back into port.

Meanwhile, NASA confirmed a week-old report that operating computers and flight recorders were among the wreckage recovered from the crew cabin last week.

Computers Being Studied

Four of Challenger’s five main computers have been moved to IBM Federal Systems Division’s office in Owego, N.Y., where attempts will be made to extract any remaining flight data from their memories--a process that is expected to take several months, the agency said.

The shuttle’s flight recorders were taken to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where magnetic tape specialists from Odetics Inc. of Anaheim, the manufacturer, were to inspect them.

It will take at least two weeks to flush the recorders clean in cold water and dry them, NASA said.

NASA spokesman Terry White said that, although he has not personally examined the flight recorder equipment, “I understand it was scrunched up pretty bad, but how bad, I don’t know. Obviously, it’s pretty grungy from being immersed in sea water for six weeks.”

Last Milliseconds

White said the most that can be expected from the recorders is a recap of the last milliseconds of Challenger’s flight after computer transmissions to the ground were broken off.

It is not clear whether the recorders were set up to monitor conversations in the cockpit during the launching. Even if conversations were recorded, “I doubt they would ever see the light of day,” unless they are released by the presidential commission investigating the accident, White said.

White compared it to NASA’s decision not to release audio tapes of the 1967 Apollo accident.