Space Shuttle Launched, Puts Satellite in Orbit

After waiting for nearly two hours for a persistent fog to lift, the space shuttle Discovery thundered to orbit Monday with a crew of five men, four doomed rats and 32 unborn chicks.

Six hours later, the crew deployed a $100-million communications satellite, which rocketed into a higher orbit after the Discovery maneuvered away.

First Flight of Year

The nation’s first space flight of the year began at 6:57 a.m. PST when the Discovery’s three main engines and two solid rocket boosters blazed to life, sending the vehicle roaring across the sky.

In addition to the fog, there had been some concern about strong winds at altitudes above 25,000 feet, but instruments carried aloft by weather balloons helped alleviate those worries, and the launching eventually went off smoothly.

The five-day mission is to end at either 6:35 or 8:05 a.m. PST Saturday--depending on how many orbits the shuttle makes--with California’s Edwards Air Force Base as the scheduled landing site.

To Perform Experiments

The five men aboard the Discovery are to carry out a number of experiments, but their primary responsibility was accomplished when they ejected the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, built by TRW Corp. of Redondo Beach, Calif.

The satellite, which, with its two giant dish antennas, is the size of a house in orbit, is part of a sophisticated communications network that will let the National Aeronautics and Space Administration keep track of more than 20 spacecraft through a single ground station at White Sands, N. M.

The satellite will replace an aging sister satellite over the Atlantic, giving NASA two healthy relays, which will permit it to maintain nearly constant contact with orbiting shuttles.

The satellite is also considered essential to the operation of the Hubble Space Telescope, which is scheduled to be launched in December. The telescope, destined to become the crown jewel of the world of astronomy, will need the satellite network to send back images it will capture of the fringes of the universe.

The rats and the unborn chicks carried aboard the Discovery are part of two student experiments to study how bones heal in a weightless environment and how zero gravity affects the development of embryos. The embryo experiment is being sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Not all the creatures carried to space aboard the Discovery were invited guests. The spaceship picked up a few “smears on the windows,” Discovery commander Michael L. Coats told mission control shortly after the launching.

“We can see a few smudges on the windows,” he radioed. “Looks like bug smudges,” the skipper said, suggesting that some creatures involuntarily landed on the outside of the windows as the Discovery sped toward space.

Overall, “everything went pretty much as planned, and it looked really good from where I sat,” flight director Lee Briscoe said from mission control in Houston.

Bush Watches Blastoff

In Washington, President Bush watched the blastoff on television--and was late to a meeting. “I just couldn’t pull myself away from watching the Discovery,” Bush said.

At the Kennedy Space Center, launching director Robert Sieck said: “This is the kind of Monday to start a week on. This is going to be a long launch season and we’re going to have more of these.”

In an effort to encourage interest in space exploration by youngsters, NASA makes space available aboard the shuttles for student experiments that have scientific merit. Both projects on this flight began when the students were still in high school.

Andrew I. Fras, of Binghamton, N. Y., now 22 and a medical student at Brown University, wondered how bones would heal in a weightless environment. His interest had been stimulated by evidence that prolonged exposure to space reduces calcium in the bones of astronauts and thus could make the healing process much longer and less predictable.

Preparing for Injuries

That information, he said, may be important in the event of an injury to an astronaut.

“No one knows what happens to a broken bone in space,” he said during an interview here. “We want to know how to treat them.”

Fras’ experiment is sponsored by the Orthopedic Hospital/USC. Although some press reports said that the legs of the four rats had been broken, Fras, who hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon, said that is not technically correct.

Five days before the launching, he said, small holes “about the width of a pencil lead” were poked through the bones in the rats’ hind legs.

After the mission, the rats will be killed and their bones studied to see what effect weightlessness had on the healing process.

“We expect it to be impaired somehow,” Fras said. “We believe healing will be adversely affected in some way.”

High School Experiment

Like Fras, John Vellinger, 23, of Lafayette, Ind., began his experiment when in high school. Vellinger, who is now a senior mechanical engineering student at Purdue University, said he was curious about how weightlessness would affect an embryo.

“We need to know, can people live and work and possibly have children in space?” Vellinger said during an interview here.

Vellinger came up with a proposal to put 32 chicken eggs aboard the space shuttle. NASA accepted the project, and his experiment was aboard the Challenger when the spacecraft exploded three years ago. The space agency invited him to try again, and 32 fertilized eggs were packed in a special crate and loaded aboard the Discovery.

Because the eggs were fertilized at different times--16 of them two days before launching and 16 nine days before liftoff--Vellinger hopes the five days of the flight will be enough to learn something about embryonic development during the 21-day period of incubation.

The young chickens, he insisted, are not destined to become either extra crispy or regular. They will “probably go to a zoo” after the experiment has been completed, Vellinger said.

Two Space Veterans Aboard

The Discovery crew includes two veterans of space flight. Coats, the commander, was a member of the crew for the maiden flight of Discovery in August, 1984. He is 43 years old.

James F. Buchli, also 43, is on his third flight. But this is the first flight for the Discovery’s pilot, John E. Blaha, 46, an Air Force colonel.

It is also the first flight for Robert C. Springer, 46, a former Marine Corps test pilot, and James P. Bagian, 37, a physician.

DISCOVERY’S MISSION SPACECRAFT: It is the eighth flight for Discovery since its launch on Aug. 30, 1984; the 28th space shuttle mission.

ORBIT: 184 miles high.

CREW: Navy Capt. Michael L. Coats, 43, veteran of Discovery’s maiden flight, commander; Air Force Col. John E. Blaha, 46, pilot; Marine Cols. Robert C. Springer, 46, and James F. Buchli, 43; and Dr. James M. Bagian, 36, a physician.

MAJOR GOAL: To deploy a $100-million Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to improve ground communication with orbiting shuttles and with other NASA and Defense Department satellites.

LANDING: Saturday, 6:35 or 8:05 a.m. PST, Edwards Air Force Base.

NEXT MISSION: Atlantis on April 28 will dispatch the Magellan spacecraft to Venus.