Jul 15 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had rescheduled for July 29 launch of Space Shuttle mission 51-F with the orbiter Challenger and delayed by as much as two weeks the previously scheduled September 19 maiden voyage of the orbiter Atlantis that was to carry a secret Pentagon payload into orbit, the Washington Post reported.
The July 12 Challenger launch abort forced NASA to design a new schedule that maintained a Discovery blastoff for August 24, delayed another Challenger mission from October 3 to early November, and kept a November 27 Atlantis flight and a December 20 Columbia mission.
Kennedy Space Center (KSC) work crews had removed three parts from Challenger's No. 2 engine that engineers suspected could have triggered computers into ordering all three engines to shut down on the launch pad. One was a valve that failed to close when it should have, a second was a hydraulic actuator that ordered the valve to close, and the third was a controller that sent commands to the actuator.
"We still suspect the actuator, and nothing we've found suggests anything else," KSC spokesman Hugh Harris said. "We are replacing all three parts and continue to analyze and test the parts we remove." NASA would test fresh parts on the pad, leading to a July 23 flight readiness review. This included electronics and leak checks of parts like pumps, turbines, and valves, not a test-firing of the engines.
The delay meant a July 30 flight readiness firing test for Atlantis would take place September 12, which would delay Atlantis's maiden flight from September 19 to late September at the earliest. (W Post, July 16/85, A4)
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