The Nation - News from Oct. 21, 1988

One of the $41-million engines that powered the space shuttle Discovery into orbit last month developed a small cooling system leak and will be replaced for the ship’s next flight in February, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. Layers of nickel and copper, from which the engine’s combustion chamber is fabricated, were found to have separated in one area, said Jerry Berg, a spokesman at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The leak resulted. It is too early to tell whether the engine change will affect the flight schedule, he said.