May 6 1983
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(New page: May 6-27: Challenger's second flight in August would probably not include the second TDRS, said NASA's Robert Aller, as the agency still had no idea why the first tumbled out of contro...)
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May 6-27: Challenger's second flight in August would probably not include the second TDRS, said NASA's Robert Aller, as the agency still had no idea why the first tumbled out of control after launch April 5. STS-8 would carry only a small communications satellite for the government of India; as a substitute for the $100-million TDRS, NASA would fly the "payload flight test article," an 8,500-pound package designed to test the robot arm's ability to retrieve and deploy satellites.
Postponement of TDRS-B would keep the $1 billion Spacelab built by ESA and scheduled to fly in September on STS-9 from carrying out its full mission, as its 40 instruments were designed to work at such high speeds that they needed at least two tracking satellites to operate properly. However, ESA and NASA agreed to launch Spacelab on schedule and get a 60% to 70% return from its experiments. Even this, Aller said, would depend on NASA's ability to move TDRS-A into a synchronous orbit. Two test firings had raised its perigee 350 miles, and Aller expressed "confidence we will have [TDRS] in geosynchronous orbit sometime in June" Press reports said that firings May 10 and 11 raised the perigee more than 800 miles, still 7,000 miles short; it would take another three weeks of daily firings to achieve synchronous orbit. On May 27., NASA said that it removed TDRS-B from the cargo manifest for STS-8 and substituted the test article. By that time it had moved TDRS-A within 3,675 miles (5,915 kilometers) of proper perigee. (W Post, May 7/83, A-3, May 11183, A-9; May 12/83; NASA Release 83-86; MSFC Release 83-38)
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