Shuttle Crew Struggles to Fix Radio Link With Satellite

Endeavour’s crew struggled Monday with a bad radio link to a satellite designed to grow super-thin semiconductor film in the vacuum of space.

The shuttle crew released the Wake Shield Facility nearly two hours late because of on-and-off communication between the satellite and ground controllers.

The trouble persisted after the release, and only one of two planned satellite-thruster firings was completed, slowing the separation from Endeavour and delaying the project.

By afternoon, hours after the satellite was released, the communication link appeared to be solid. If it breaks up again, the astronauts--rather than ground controllers--will have to send all commands to the satellite.

Scientists have just two days to try to produce semiconductor film on the Wake Shield. The five astronauts are supposed to retrieve the spacecraft Wednesday.

The Wake Shield, a steel dish 12 feet in diameter, is expected to create an ultra-pure vacuum in its wake as it zooms around Earth at 17,500 m.p.h. Scientists will attempt to grow seven wafers of semiconductor film on the back side of the satellite.

The purer the film, the better the semiconductor. Such film could lead in 10 years or so to faster computers and telephone wristwatches, said Alex Ignatiev, director of the University of Houston’s Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center, which built the shield.