Sep 1 1983
From The Space Library
September 1-6: Press reports said that the continuing STS-8 mission followed up its successful nighttime liftoff and nighttime launch of India's INSAT-B, deployed from Challenger's cargo bay at 3:49 a.m. EDT by mission specialist Air Force Lt. Col. Guion S. Bluford, Jr. This was the sixth successful launch of a communications satellite from a shuttle cargo bay in orbit. Navy Capt. Richard H. Truly and Navy Lt. Cdr. Dale A. Gardner spent most of the mission's third day using the 50-foot mechanical arm to lift and move around a 19-foot 7,460-pound lead-and-aluminum dumbbell-shaped weight "the size of a truck," practicing for retrieval next April of a dummy satellite platform before trying to catch and repair the crippled 20,000-pound Solar Max satellite.
The next two days would see tests of the TDRS, now properly located to transmit communications during next April's Spacelab mission for most of the Shuttle orbit rather than the present 20%.
The odd workday beginning at night and launching INSAT in the dark had the crew retiring about 2 p.m. EDT, starting tasks in the late evening, and en-ding in the early afternoon. The computer at White Sands began refusing to acknowledge commands or to correctly position the three TDRS-use antennas at White Sands, on board the Challenger, and on TDRS. Flight controllers en-countered a three-hour silence from TDRS, but other communications links showed no problem with Challenger, and the crew was not awakened. Harold Draughon, flight director at JSC, said that 90% of the trouble lay in the instructions given the White Sands computers and that he expected Spacelab to fly on time. The crew also underwent tests by Dr. William Thornton on the causes of space sickness. In an unusual news conference between mission control in Houston and the crew in orbit, Thornton said that he had "learned more in the first hour and a half on orbit here than I had by all literature research I had done and all of, the active work in the past year." His crewmates had suffered symptoms like nausea, drowsiness, and "just plain giddiness," although he refused to give details. However, he expressed confidence that the medical problem could be solved through physiological studies aboard the Shuttle flights and would become a thing of the past "as in the early days the weight losses that were of great concern turned out to be a simple thing." The mission also accomplished a successful first-time separation in weightlessness by mission specialists Bluford and Gardner of live pancreas cells, in a pharmaceutical process that could be a step toward conquering diabetes. The "astrorats" six specimen flown on STS-8 to try out an "animal housing module" that would carry laboratory animals into orbit for various tests-were returning healthy and "feisty"; veterinarians at DFRF later found them dehydrated, as potatoes had been their source of water during flight. The rats were flown to ARC, where tests showed a postflight drop in blood volume like that of astronauts.
STS-8 concluded its series of firsts September 5 with a first-time night landing at 3:40 a.m. EDT on an Edwards Air Force Base runway, touching down 300 feet from the aiming point with no on-board power or lights to assist. "That's as good as we see in the daytime," said Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, NASA associate administrator for space flight. "Based on what we've seen here tonight, I think night landings will become routine," Truly told a welcoming ceremony. NASA had turned on the world's most powerful searchlights, beams of 4.8 billion candlepower, visible for 100 miles in every direction, to guide Challenger down.
The largest and most enthusiastic crowd of invited guests ever gathered at the end of a Shuttle mission gave the crew a standing ovation; Bluford said he was "really humbled tonight to see so many people out here at 4 o'clock in morning to welcome us back" Thornton, the oldest person at 54 to fly in space, was visibly moved by the welcome and said "I know of no point in my life that will ever reach this." President Reagan's plan to visit KSC on Labor Day September 5 to greet the crew in person was canceled; he returned to Washington cutting short a vacation, when a Korean airliner was reportedly shot down. However, Vice President George Bush was to come in his place and attend a picnic for 15,000 employees, government and contractor.
Challenger was in better shape than any of the Shuttles used on the seven previous flights, said Herman K. Widlick, KC ground operations manager, at Edwards to plan for the fastest turnaround so far. Despite a four-hour exposure to pelting rains before liftoff, six days in orbit, and landing in the dark on a concrete runway, Challenger showed less damage on the fuselage or underbelly. Tires and brakes also came through the night landing in good shape; however, the space toilet experienced the eighth straight breakdown in flight. Lt. Gen. Abrahamson said that he was "not at all pleased with the waste management system" and would set up a task-force equivalent to deal with the problem. (NASA Dly Am Rpt, Sept 9/83; NY Times, Sept 2/83, D-20; Sept 4/83, 1, 36; Sept 5/83, 9; Sept 7/83, A-18, A-22; W Post, Sept 2/83; Sept 3/83, A-3; Sept 5/83, A-3; Sept 6/83, A-3; Sept 7/83, A-4; W Times, Sept 1/83, 2A; Sept 2/83, 2A; Sept 5/83, 3A; Sept 6/83, IA; Time, Sept 12/83, 42)
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