Shuttle Sends Its Ozone Data Back to Earth

Astronauts speeding around the world on the shuttle Discovery experienced an Earthly problem Saturday--a computer crash. Fortunately, little atmospheric data was lost and the problem quickly was fixed.

The inconvenience was more than offset by good news about a data relay problem affecting one of the prime ozone monitoring instruments.

The monitor hasn’t been able to transmit atmospheric readings to Earth at high speed. An on-board recorder saving the data was nearing capacity on the third day of the eight-day mission to study the diminishing ozone layer.

Monitor readings were successfully sent Saturday at a much slower rate. Flight director John Muratore said such transmissions could free up the recorder’s tape and allow scientists to obtain all their desired data.

“This has been extremely hard work with a very complex data system,” Muratore said. “The teams have been working night and day, and this is Yankee ingenuity at its finest.”

A brief computer failure on board the shuttle affected instruments collecting solar and atmospheric data.

Astronaut Ellen Ochoa, with help from ground controllers, had the system back up and running in 44 minutes. But researchers had to skip one run of an ozone monitor that measures atmospheric gases during sunrise and sunset.

A highlight of the flight--release of a solar science spacecraft--was set for this morning. Ochoa already has tested the shuttle robot arm, which she planned to use to lift the spacecraft from the cargo bay. The spacecraft is to be retrieved by the crew Tuesday and returned to Earth when the flight ends Friday.