The Nation - News from April 23, 1989

Two military space shuttle flights will be delayed because work to prepare the shuttle Columbia for flight is taking longer than expected. NASA said the schedule had become too tight to support both missions and preserve an October launch for the Galileo flight to Jupiter. A Discovery launch that had been scheduled for Aug. 10 will be delayed until at least November. Columbia, which had a July 1 launch target, will be launched in early August, the space agency said. Officials have said the planned Oct. 12 liftoff of Atlantis with the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo spacecraft is a high-priority flight because there is only a 40-day launch period during which Jupiter and Earth are aligned properly.