SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Satellite Rescue Mission Planned

The owner of a $150-million communications satellite stranded in a useless orbit, International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, agreed Wednesday to pay NASA about $90 million to mount a bold spacewalk rescue mission during the 1992 maiden flight of the shuttle Endeavour. NASA has tentatively scheduled the flight for February, 1992. Endeavour is also scheduled to carry a science satellite into orbit.

The Intelsat 6 spacecraft, the most powerful commercially built television, telephone and data relay satellite ever built, was stranded in a useless orbit March 14 when it failed to separate properly from the second stage of its Titan 3 launch rocket because of a faulty Titan ejection system.

The only way to get the satellite away from the spent second stage was to separate it from an on-board rocket that was to have boosted the relay station toward its planned orbit 22,300 miles above the Equator.

The rescue plan calls for Endeavour to carry a new “perigee kick motor” into orbit. After the shuttle completes a rendezvous, two space-walking astronauts will attach the satellite to the motor.