NATION IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Countdown Starting for Shuttle Mission
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Engineers prepared to start the countdown for the space shuttle Discovery at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center as environmentalists sued to halt the Saturday blastoff. Discovery is to launch a probe that will fly over the uncharted poles of the sun. It carries 24 pounds of plutonium 238 dioxide, and environmentalists fear a radiation release if there is a launching catastrophe.
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