First Shuttle Flight Since Disaster Delayed 4 Months; 9 Others Planned

The first post-Challenger space shuttle flight was rescheduled Wednesday for June of 1988, four months later than originally planned to allow more time for testing, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced.

The space agency also said it will schedule two additional shuttle flights for 1988 and seven for 1989.

“I fully concur with that decision,” said Rick Hauck, who is training at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to command the five-member crew that will make the first flight, aboard Discov1702000942space sooner,” he said, “but I believe that this is a prudent thing to do.”

There have been no manned U.S. space flights since the Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven aboard.

“Safely returning the space shuttle to flight is NASA’s highest priority,” NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said. “Our revised plan for space shuttle recovery is ambitious and assumes that we will successfully complete our test and processing objectives.”

NASA said it will announce later which cargoes will be carried under the revised schedule and which ones will be delayed. Under the most recently announced list, the first flight was to have carried a giant NASA tracking and data relay satellite called TDRS, and the next two missions were to have had military cargoes.

The resumption of space flight has been delayed by problems of redesigning and testing the shuttle’s rocket boosters. Booster builder Morton Thiokol Inc. announced on Wednesday that it will conduct the first in a series of test firings Friday in Utah.

NASA originally had set July, 1987, as the target date for resumption of flights but it quickly became apparent that schedule could not be met. It then set Feb. 18, 1988, for Flight 26, as it is called.

But last month, shuttle director Richard H. Truly announced two major systems tests he said “will add several weeks to the overall processing time for Discovery.”

NASA said the new launch date, which will be picked later, will allow time for the two tests, one in which the external tank is filled with fuel for a simulated launch countdown, and a flight readiness firing in which the three main engines will be fired for 20 seconds.

Hauck said the additional time also will allow testing of a tractor rocket escape system that he hopes will be aboard the spacecraft.