NASA Resets Shuttle Missions; Plans 3 Flights to Close Out ’89

NASA plans to close out 1989 with a flurry of launch activity, scheduling three flights between Oct. 12 and the end of the year and pushing the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope into 1990, sources said Friday.

In a three-paragraph statement, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced a new order for the next seven shuttle missions, which has been under debate for several weeks.

Anticipated Dates

Although NASA declined to release any launch dates, sources said recent internal planning documents listed these anticipated dates for the mission order announced by the space agency Friday:

--July 31: The flagship shuttle Columbia takes off on a classified military mission.

--Oct. 12: The shuttle Atlantis carries the Galileo Jupiter probe into space.

--Nov. 19: Another military payload is carried into orbit by the shuttle Discovery.

--December: Columbia returns to space to launch a military communications satellite and to retrieve the “long duration exposure facility,” or LDEF, a science satellite left in orbit in 1984.

--Feb. 19, 1990: Atlantis blasts off on a military mission.

--March 26: Discovery carries the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, three months later than had been planned.

--April 26: Columbia returns to orbit for a Spacelab astronomy mission.