3-Year NASA Plan Lists 19 Shuttle Flights

NASA said Thursday that it plans 19 space shuttle flights in the next three years and announced a schedule of 49 satellite launchings on unmanned rockets that demonstrates how thoroughly the agency has ceased its total reliance on the shuttle.

The first new schedule in a year shows five fewer shuttle flights through October, 1990, a reduction caused partly by a delay in the first post-Challenger mission from February to June next year.

The schedule shows that through 1995 about 30 non-military payloads originally destined to be carried into orbit by the shuttle will now go on unmanned rockets. NASA, however, still has to seek money from Congress to finance most of those rockets.

Call Date Optimistic

Many experts think the June 2, 1988, first flight date is optimistic because of NASA’s tight schedule in rebuilding the booster rockets that caused the explosion of the Challenger with a loss of seven lives in January, 1986, and in outfitting the shuttle fleet with redesigned engines.

Since the accident, the space program has come to a virtual halt.

Before Challenger, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was phasing out its unmanned rockets and was planning to use only the shuttle to carry cargo into space. But the accident caused officials to turn to expendable rockets to cease reliance on a single system.

Seven of the first 19 shuttle flights--through 1990--will carry secret military cargoes, the same as planned last year.

Expected Military Cargo

NASA had counted the military as its best customer and planned that the Defense Department would use about one-third of cargo bay capacity.

But the Air Force seized on the shutdown caused by the accident to beef up its own launching capacity, ordering 23 huge Titan 4 rockets, nine Delta 2s with options for 13 more, and modifying 13 smaller Titan 2s for cargo use.