Quick-Fix Plan to Repair Shuttle Telescope Fails

NASA engineers working through the night found early Saturday that a proposed quick fix would not restore communications to a telescope on the space shuttle Columbia, necessitating more complex repairs that will delay the shuttle’s launch until Wednesday night at the earliest.

Columbia is carrying the $150-million Astro observatory, whose scheduled launch in 1986 has been repeatedly delayed, first by the January, 1986, Challenger explosion and then by a hydrogen leak discovered only six hours before a scheduled liftoff in May.

On Thursday, engineers lost contact with an electronic communications package designed to keep them in contact with one of the four Astro telescopes while the shuttle is on the launch pad, delaying the launch further.

NASA officials had hoped to make speedy repairs by using a specially prepared cable to connect the telescope to a backup electronic unit within the communications package. But when they attached the cable Saturday, they found that it did not correct the problem.

Engineers on Saturday were attempting to replace one electronic unit within the package in hopes that it would correct the problem. If that fix is successful, Columbia could launch as early as 10:20 p.m. PDT Wednesday. If the repair does not work, the entire package will be replaced and the launch could be delayed until the same time on Friday.

NASA has until about Sept. 14 to get Columbia launched. A later liftoff would interfere with the high-priority launch of the shuttle Discovery, now scheduled for Oct. 5. Discovery will carry the Ulysses probe, which will slingshot past Jupiter to go into polar orbit around the sun. If Discovery is not launched by Oct. 23, NASA will have to wait 13 months for another attempt when the planets are once again in the proper alignment.

Discovery, already on a tight prelaunch schedule, suffered a minor setback Saturday when technicians encountered a problem while mating the shuttle to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. Engineers had planned to roll it out to the launch pad today, but that rollout was postponed for two days.