Shuttle Ends Secret Mission With a Boom

Swooping in over the Los Angeles Basin with a thunderous sonic boom that set earthquake hot lines ringing, America’s oldest shuttle made a perfect landing here on Rogers Dry Lake early Sunday morning.

With its five-man military crew, Columbia touched down at 6:38 a.m., ending a secret five-day mission that included the launch of a top-secret spy satellite and scientific tests thought to be part of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

“A super team and a great machine. Welcome home Columbia,” capsule communicator Frank Culbertson radioed the crew from Houston as the orbiter rolled to a halt--one of the very few times during the mission when news media and the public were allowed to overhear communications between mission control and the astronauts.

No Apparent Damage

Although the orbiter appeared a little dirty around the windshield, National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said that it had sustained no apparent damage during its flight and that none of the heat-absorbing tiles, which protect it during re-entry, appeared to be missing.

Columbia’s last landing was in January, 1985, just 10 days before the Challenger explosion that sent the space agency into a tailspin from which it recovered only this year. Columbia, which was the first orbiter flown, was heavily cannibalized after the Challenger disaster in the intensive effort to renovate Atlantis and Discovery, becoming, in Air Force jargon, a “hangar queen.”

Atlantis and Discovery have each made two flights this year. But Columbia required more than 250 modifications, involving more than 2 million man-hours of labor, before it could be successfully launched last Tuesday.

The crew, looking fit and rested, emerged from Columbia 45 minutes after touchdown. The crew members--Air Force Col. Brewster Shaw, 44; Navy Cmdr. David C. Leestma, 40; Navy Cmdr. Richard N. Richards, 42; Army Lt. Col. James C. Adamson, 43, and Air Force Maj. Mark N. Brown, 37--flew back to Houston shortly afterward.

The landing was greeted with exuberance by a small band of crew families, Edwards employees, and invited VIPs, along with a quieter press contingent. Missing were the huge crowds that normally show up for a shuttle landing, particularly a weekend landing when children are out of school. Edwards was closed to the public at the direction of the Air Force, which likes to keep a tight lid on missions carrying Department of Defense payloads.

Although both NASA and the Defense Department have been closemouthed about Columbia’s activities this week, Air Force Secretary Donald Rice confirmed on Wednesday that it had launched a satellite, which experts believe was a KH-12 spy satellite built by TRW. The 10-ton Keyhole satellite is said to be capable of sending back photographs of objects on the ground the size of a basketball.

In order for the satellite to be launched into an orbit that would cover at least 80% of the Soviet Union, Columbia was in an unusual orbit that brought it into Edwards over the Los Angeles Basin rather than in its normal path over Santa Barbara. As a result, its distinctive double sonic boom was heard--and felt--throughout the area, triggering calls to police and fire departments.

As many as 100 people called police in Santa Monica to report an earthquake or to ask how strong it was, according to Sgt. James Hirt, and other stations reported many calls as well.

NASA has three more shuttle flights scheduled for this year. In October, Atlantis will launch the Galileo probe that will provide the first in-depth exploration of Jupiter and its moons. Discovery will carry another military payload in November and, in December, Columbia will attempt to recover an experimental satellite called L-DEF from orbit before it crashes back into the atmosphere and burns up.