Apr 1 1983
From The Space Library
April 1-14: Countdown for the April 4 launch of STS-6, first flight of shuttle orbiter Challenger, began when inspection of its payload-TDRS-show ed. "a much lower level of contamination than originally thought" Robert E. Smylie, associate administrator for space tracking and data systems, said that the cargo bay and critical parts of the TDRS solar array had been cleaned and that TDRS would be put back into the cargo bay.
Press reports noted that the 75-ton Challenger, a slimmed-down version of Columbia, could lift more and was nearly 2,500 pounds lighter than its predecessor. Made of lighter materials, it had no crew-ejection seats. Crew of the five-day $26-million mission would be Paul Weitz, the only spaceflight veteran; Karol Bobko; and Donald Peterson and Story Musgrave, who on the fourth day of the mission would perform the first Shuttle space walk.
Launch April 4 at 1:30 p.m. EST from KSC exhibited "no sign of the engine trouble that forced four of its five launch postponements," said press reports. Challenger was in orbit 10 minutes after liftoff.
About 11:30 p.m. the crew launched TDRS from the cargo bay by firing six explosive bolts that hurled it a mile or so from Challenger. About one, hour later, from a distance of about 32 miles, the crew fired a huge rocket engine attached to TDRS to start boosting it to a permanent position 22,400 miles above the equator. TDRS-A would be first of three communications satellites to be stationed in a global network that would quadruple the area from which U.S. spacecraft could communicate with Earth, as well as the amount of time available for such communication, and would begin to eliminate the need for global ground stations.
About 6 a.m. EST April 5 ground control lost touch with TDRS during a 104-second firing to nudge it into higher orbit. This was the second use of the rocket system called inertial upper stage (IUS), built by Boeing for the U.S. Air Force. The second state ignited but burned only about 70 seconds; TDRS and its rocket were out of contact for 3 hours. The STS-6 crew was asleep at the time. At 9 a.m. EST, mission control suddenly reacquired signals from TDRS and project officials reported that it had separated from the IUS and stabilized itself. All satellite systems appeared to be working normally. NASA said that it had appointed a panel to look into anomaly, which was blamed on misfire of an on-board rocket. The misfire put' TDRS into an eccentric orbit at an angle to the equator, instead of almost directly over it. Flight directors said that they could correct the TDRS orbit by period firings of on- board hydrazine.
Just before the space walk April 7, President Reagan congratulated the STS-6 crew on being "ahead of schedule," adding "I can't say I envy you" A reporter who asked the president why was told "May be a little claustrophobia." Musgrave and Peterson exited through an airlock just after 4 p.m. EST, fastened themselves to 50-foot safety wires, and moved about the 65-foot-long cargo bay to test new space suits, handholds and footholds, tools, and ropes to be used in retrieval and repair of orbiting spacecraft. While Weitz and Bobko watched from inside, Musgrave and Peterson stayed outside Challenger for 3 hours and 52 minutes, doing the first U.S. space walk since February 1974, when Edward Gibson and Gerald Carr left Skylab to retrieve film from an exterior camera. A space walk scheduled last November from the Shuttle Columbia had been canceled when both space suits exhibited mechanical failures.
On April 8 from JSC mission control, Vice President George Bush told the crew that their mission was a "significant contribution." The crew had suffered some space sickness but felt "pretty chipper," according to the capsule communicator. When the astronauts appeared on television during Bush's visit, Musgrave was performing rolls in the weightless environment, and Weitz explained that he was "trying to see if he can make himself sick again." Challenger, with Weitz at the controls, landed at Edwards Air Force Base April 9 at 1:53 p.m. EST. Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, NASA associate administrator for space flight, said that the crew and the vehicle were "in great shape" Besides launching TDRS, the mission exposed seeds to effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation. It also carried a snowflake machine from the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun to produce symmetrical crystals, such as those needed in computers; a device to separate rat and egg proteins in weightlessness, aimed at ultrapure medicines; a device to produce uniform microscopic latex beads to test supersensitive measuring instruments; and an Air Force Academy canister containing a tiny oven to solder metals in weightlessness.
STS-7, tentatively set for June 9, was to land Challenger at KSC only a few miles from its launch point. STS-8 was supposed to take TDRS-B into orbit as part of a communications link needed for the European Space Agency's (ESA) Spacelab mission due to fly on STS-9; Spacelab would carry about 40 scientific experiments requiring constant communications with Earth through the two TDRS communications satellites.
However, Abrahamson said that NASA "will not fly a second satellite on the eighth shuttle flight until we understand what went wrong on this flight." He said that a U.S. Air Force camera in New Mexico had recorded, from a distance of about 20,000 miles, what happened to put the $100 million TDRS into a wrong orbit. (NASA MOR T-313-83-01 [prelaunch] Jan 14/83, Mar 25/83; NASA Releases 83-37, 83-49; MSFC Release 83-21; text, Pres. Doc., Apr 4, 7/83; NY Times, Apr 6/83, A-1; Apr 7/83, D-7; Apr 8/83, A-l; Apr 9/83, 8; Apr 10/83, 1; W Post, Mar 31/83, A-15; Apr 5/83, A-l; Apr 6/83, A-1; Apr 8/83, A-1; Apr 10/83, A-1; W Times, Apr 5/83, 2A)
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