Shuttle Leads a Caravan of Satellites Through Space

The space shuttle Columbia led a procession of satellites around the globe Saturday as a prototype space factory and an ultraviolet observatory followed it through space.

The Wake Shield satellite released Friday night and the Orfeus-Spas orbiting observatory deployed Tuesday will be retrieved by Columbia’s crew later in their 16-day mission.

It is the first time the shuttle has orbited along with two recoverable satellites and represents a significant challenge for ground controllers, NASA officials said.

“It’s a very sophisticated ballet we’re doing here,” flight director Al Pennington said. “The dynamics of the three-body problem is going to be very tricky. We’ve spent a lot of time planning for it.”

The Wake Shield, a prototype space-based semiconductor film factory, had already given the astronauts a scare when it passed close to the shuttle’s cockpit window minutes after it was released into space.

The saucer-shaped craft was supposed to have been 24 feet from the shuttle but may have come as close as 10 feet, shuttle commander Ken Cockrell said.

The astronauts were never in danger because Cockrell could have fired thrusters to take evasive action, NASA officials said.

But that would have contaminated the sensitive spacecraft with rocket exhaust, ruining its production of semiconductor film.

The film will be grown atom by atom on the back of the Wake Shield in the ultra-clean vacuum created in its wake as it zooms around Earth at 17,500 mph. The goal is to create semiconductor material superior to that produced on Earth for advanced electronics.

By Saturday afternoon, the Wake Shield was trailing Columbia by 25 miles in their orbit about 220 miles above Earth, and the telescope lagged about 50 miles behind the 12-foot-diameter disk.

Controllers operating the 2-ton Wake Shield reported no problems with its stabilizing system like those that occurred last year.

Sixty-one-year-old astronaut Story Musgrave, the oldest person ever in space, took time out for a haircut Saturday, or rather a shaving of his more or less bald head. One crew mate used an electric shaver to trim stubble from the sides of his head, another vacuumed up the loose hair and a third wiped his shiny pate.

“I tell you, these . . . folks are real magicians,” Musgrave said, smiling. “They can work on something which isn’t there.”