Shuttle Roars Aloft, but Technical Glitches Arise : Space: Mission seeks to test ‘Star Wars’ components. Balky recorders are part of that experiment. Ground crews are battling the problem.

The Space Shuttle Discovery thundered into a hazy Florida sky Sunday morning, carrying a $94.2-million “Star Wars” experiment, but soon encountered technical problems.

Crew members were unable to activate two tape recorders designed to collect data from scientific instruments. NASA officials said the mission would continue while ground controllers tried to solve the problem.

“The worst case may be some impact on some experiment operations,” said flight director Ron Dittemore, who added that the most important experiment would not be affected by the malfunction.

The recorders and scientific instruments mounted in the cargo bay were expected to study the ability of sensors to distinguish spacecraft from other phenomena.

When Mission Control was informed of the problem 10 1/2 hours into the flight, it responded with two words: “No joy.”

That was in marked contrast to the euphoria that accompanied the successful morning launch.

“We have liftoff of Discovery on a research flight for the Department of Defense,” said Lisa Malone, Kennedy Space Center spokeswoman, as the shuttle soared into the sky 32 minutes later than expected because of a last-minute inadvertent start of the shuttle’s flight computer.

As Discovery swung into its 161-mile-high orbit, shuttle commander and veteran spaceman Michael L. Coats radioed that “everything seems to be going pretty well.”

“We’ve got a bunch of kids in the candy store up here having a ball,” Coats said, referring to himself and his six fellow astronauts.

The launch came after two separate mechanical failures had delayed it by almost two months. Last Tuesday, the flight was scrubbed less than five hours before liftoff when a main engine transducer malfunctioned.

That was about six weeks after the orbiter vehicle was drawn back from its launch pad so that engineers could fix cracks that had appeared in the door assemblies that link the orbiter with its external fuel tanks.

The flight also comes as NASA officials here eagerly await the expected Friday arrival of the nation’s fifth shuttle orbiter, Endeavour, from California, where it was built. After the loss of Challenger in January, 1986, Endeavour will bring the inventory of U.S. space shuttles to four.

On the Defense Department’s first-ever unclassified shuttle flight, the seven astronauts were scheduled to work around the clock in shifts to conduct 18 space experiments with a total payload valued at $260 million.

Most of those experiments are expected to help the Pentagon refine its understanding of how missiles and warheads look as they move through space. The data collected should guide scientists and engineers in the development of weapons that could detect and intercept such projectiles in space, said Michael Griffin, deputy for technology of the Pentagon’s Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

The 40th shuttle mission comes two months after President Bush ordered the SDI organization, the flight’s principal sponsor, to recast its efforts in order to develop quickly a limited defense against smaller and less-sophisticated missile launches, such as the Scud missile used during the Persian Gulf War by Iraq.

Griffin said the thrust of the planned shuttle experiments is “very much in line” with his agency’s new focus, which could place guided conventional weapons called “brilliant pebbles” into space in the mid-1990s.

In what one program official called “a real space ballet,” the shuttle is expected to release one of its four major payloads into space, where it would record images of the shuttle and other mini-satellites spewing plumes of gas.

According to Michael Harrison, the manager of the Infrared Background Signature Survey program, SDI scientists believe that the Soviets could use such gasses to obscure incoming missiles or warheads from U.S. systems. Although the United States has begun to refocus its “Star Wars” program on less sophisticated threats than those posed by the Soviets, officials said they still want to thwart any efforts to hide a nuclear missile attack with warheads that can release such “chaff.”

In addition to the commander, Navy Capt. Coats, the shuttle crew includes the pilot, Air Force Maj. L. Blaine Hammond, and Lt. Cols. Don McMonagle and Guion Bluford. Civilians Gregory J. Harbaugh, C. Lacy Veach and Richard J. Hieb are mission specialists aboard the flight.

The aim of the Infrared Background Signature Survey program is to watch objects in space against the backdrop of Earth’s tumultuous and tricky atmosphere, officials said. Such natural phenomena as the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, as well as Earth’s ozone and carbon dioxide layers, can distort the image of a moving object and sometimes create images that fool space sensors into seeing nonexistent missiles.

At least four unmanned rocket missions have been sent aloft to gather information on the nature of Earth’s outer atmosphere and of missiles and warheads moving toward it. But Griffin defended the manned data-gathering effort as heightening the quality and reliability of the data already in hand.

Griffin also defended the Defense Department’s unusual decision to run this shuttle mission outside the usual shroud of secrecy. That exception to standard procedure has raised questions as to whether the Pentagon feels pressure to prove that about $24 billion in SDI funds spent since 1983 are yielding some returns. The Pentagon says it expects to save $80 million a year by lifting the secrecy restrictions on shuttle flights.

Griffin said some of the engineering and scientific data culled from the eight-day mission will be kept under wraps. But Harrison said that some videotape will be released, and promised that it will produce “one of the best shows in town.”

The shuttle is scheduled to return to earth at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on May 6.