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Wednesday, September 19. 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Brian T. Schoeni/KANSAN
Survey says
Imad Abousleman, Beirut junior, left, and Cheryl Teter, Overland Park junior, adjust the automatic level before taking a reading for their surveying lab. The two were learning how to use the instrument yesterday afternoon west of Potter Lake.
Shuttle launch stopped again
After fourth failure, NASA to concentrate on October launch of Ulysses space probe
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- After four failures, NASA gave up trying to launch the space shuttle Columbia. Efforts were stopped so that NASA could concentrate on getting Discovery aloft in October before the planets fall out of the proper alignment.
NASA scrubbed the fourth attempt to launch Columbia about seven hours before it was to lift off at 1:28 a.m. yesterday after a buildup of engine gas and an unmanned gate was detected in the engine compartment during fueling.
"I do not understand it. Our plan is that we are going to understand it," said Robert Crippen, shuttle director.
Columbia was to have lifted off with the $150 million Astro observatory to study some of the hottest objects in the universe.
The Discovery mission has been
given priority. Its crew will launch the Ulysses space probe toward the sun during an alignment of Earth, because that won't reocur for 13 months.
Another effort to launch Columbia is not likely before November, if then. NASA said.
Columbia's crew of seven, which includes four astronomers, was to return to Houston yesterday.
Three of Columbia's scrubs were for hydrogen leaks. The fourth was because of a problem communicating with one of the four telescopes that Columbia was to carry on a 10-day astronomical mission.
The space agency planned on nine missions this year. So far, it has had
The latest failure means that if Discovery goes in October, nearly six months will have gone by without a shuttle flight, the longest gap between missions since the Challenger disaster in 1986.
only three.
Engineers had not decided on the next step, which probably would involve installing cameras and lights in Columbia's engine compartment and making aanking procedure again. Cripped there may be three or more leaks.
After a fueling attempt on May 29, when the first hydrogen buildup occurred both outside the shuttle and inside the engine compartment, NASA focused on a plumbing connection between the fuel tank and the shuttle. A similar leak was found in the shuttle Atlantis, prompting NASA to ground the three-shuttle fleet temporarily.
Engineers determined that microscopic glass beads somehow worked their way into Columbia's seals and provided a path for the leaks. The seals were replaced, but on Sept. 5. hydrogen flooded the air compartment again.
NASA replaced three small pumps and a damaged Teflon seal over a valve.
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