Last-Minute Glitch Delays Shuttle Mission

A last-minute glitch in a computer system that monitors space shuttle takeoffs to ensure people’s safety on the ground forced NASA to scrub Thursday’s scheduled launch of Columbia on a medical research mission.

Space agency officials said they would try to launch the shuttle today at 7:53 a.m. PDT, despite a forecast calling for bad weather.

After waiting two hours Thursday for the skies to clear over the space center, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration resumed the countdown but had to halt it for good at 31 seconds, about a minute and a half after the computer trouble struck.

The problem occurred in a 13-year-old computer system at a nearby Air Force station. If Columbia veered off course and was headed toward populated areas, the Air Force would have to send commands to ignite on-board explosives and blow up the spaceship.

Air Force Col. Bill Sample said one of two computers monitoring the radio link to the shuttle registered a failure in that link, even though engineers quickly determined that no problem existed. But by then it was too late in the countdown to confirm that everything was working properly.

Tests conducted by the Air Force throughout the afternoon verified that all equipment was ready to support another launch attempt today.

Columbia’s 14-day journey--the longest shuttle flight ever planned by NASA--is intended to help scientists learn more about how the body changes because of weightlessness. It will be only the second shuttle mission devoted to medical research.