New Tests to Delay Launch of Shuttle Several Weeks

NASA said Tuesday it is delaying for several weeks the first post-Challenger space shuttle launching because it is adding two major confidence-building tests to the schedule.

Officials had set Feb. 18, 1988, as a target for resuming flights, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it is reassessing the date as a result of the extra tests. The space agency said it would set a new date in a few weeks.

The added tests are a “wet” countdown test, in which shuttle Discovery’s huge fuel tank will be filled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and a flight readiness firing, in which the three main engines will be ignited for 20 seconds while Discovery is locked on the launching pad.

The shuttle fleet has been grounded since the January, 1986, Challenger explosion that killed the seven crew members.

“The tests will definitely affect our launch date by a number of weeks,” Arnold Aldrich, director of the shuttle program, told the opening session of the 24th Space Congress here.

Aldrich told a news conference later that the two tests would delay the launching until at least April 1. But he acknowledged that the flight could be much later.

Initial tests of the redesigned solid fuel booster rocket are several months behind schedule, and modifications to the main engines, brakes, landing gear and other systems are lagging. A faulty booster rocket joint caused the Challenger accident.

Most NASA officials have said for some time that Feb. 18 was unrealistic, so Tuesday’s announcement was no surprise.

Aldrich said the countdown and firing tests “not only will demonstrate changes we are making to the launch vehicle and ground equipment, but it also will be a good confidence-builder for the launch crew after standing down for more than two years.”