Heaviest Shuttle Swoops Home by Floodlight

The space shuttle Columbia swept home with its rescued scientific satellite safely tucked in its payload bay Saturday morning, touching down on the floodlit concrete runway here at 1:37 a.m. in only the third night landing of the shuttle program’s history.

The landing had been delayed for nearly a full day because of dense fog here early Friday morning, and was delayed for one more orbit Saturday when a backup on-board computer failed shortly before shuttle commander Daniel C. Brandenstein was to fire the shuttle’s rockets for re-entry.

The one-day delay made the 10-day, 21-hour mission the longest U.S. shuttle flight, surpassing a 10-day, 7-hour, 47-minute record set by Columbia in 1983.

NASA experts had expected the landing to be somewhat trickier than normal because Columbia was 5 tons heavier at landing than any previous shuttle mission, primarily because it was carrying the 11-ton Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), a scientific satellite that the shuttle’s five astronauts had plucked from space last Friday before it could crash back into the atmosphere.

With the extra weight on board, the spacecraft touched down at a speed of about 270 m.p.h., about 28 m.p.h. faster than normal. But Brandenstein set Columbia down easily, flashing through the high-intensity xenon lights at the end of Runway 22 before rolling to a stop near the end of the concrete.

A crowd estimated at 2,000 people braved the chilly, 20-degree desert night to get a brief glimpse of the shuttle, which has no landing lights of its own, as it suddenly materialized at the end of the runway. Television watchers at home had a much better view from NASA’s infrared cameras, which were able to see Columbia on its approach due to the heat it gave off.

The shuttle’s flight path brought it across the Pacific coastline over Ventura, and its characteristic twin sonic booms awakened residents from Malibu to Santa Barbara.

“It was a beautiful landing,” said NASA associate administrator William B. Lenoir. NASA officials said there was no damage to the landing gear or the shuttle’s brakes because of the heavier-than-normal load, but the brakes did heat up a bit more than had been expected. Damage to the shuttle’s tiles, which protect it from the fiery heat of re-entry, was also minimal.

The five astronauts--Brandenstein, pilot James D. Wetherbee, and mission specialists Bonnie J. Dunbar, Marsha S. Ivins, and G. David Low--remained in the shuttle two hours and 5 minutes after landing--about twice as long as normal--so they could be given a quick medical examination after the extended mission.

“It looked like all five were quite healthy,” Lenoir said during a post-flight news conference.

Brandenstein, who has flown two previous shuttle missions, now has 574 hours in space, the record for shuttle astronauts. Dunbar, who has made one previous flight, has 428 hours, the longest for a female astronaut.

Some time this week, Columbia will be loaded atop a specially equipped 747 for the two-day flight back to Kennedy Space Center. Scientists there are eager to get a look at Long Duration Exposure Facility, which was designed to measure the effects of prolonged exposure to the harsh environment of space on the materials used to construct spacecraft and satellites. After close to six years in space, the satellite is expected to provide researchers with a wealth of new data about the damage done by cosmic radiation, micrometeorites, prolonged heat and cold and space junk produced in the destruction of other satellites.

The satellite also contains 12 million tomato seeds that will be distributed to students around the country by April. The students will grow tomatoes from the seeds and watch for any mutations or other ill effects caused by radiation or the microgravity of the space environment.

The next shuttle mission is a secret Department of Defense flight scheduled for February, presumably to launch a spy satellite.

NASA had planned to launch the long-delayed Hubble Space Telescope in March, but agency officials announced this week that the mission will have to be postponed until late April so that O-rings on the shuttle’s booster rockets can be replaced. Faulty O-rings caused the January, 1986, explosion that destroyed Challenger and killed seven crew members.

The delay on Hubble may endanger NASA’s ambitious plans to launch 10 shuttle missions during 1990, the most ever.