Dec 29 1987
From The Space Library
NASA announced that a more detailed examination of the results of the December 23 cold weather test-firing of the redesigned booster rocket revealed that an outer ring which anchors the booster's nozzle came apart during the test. The nozzle steers the Space Shuttle during the first two minutes of flight. The setback forced NASA to cancel the June 2, 1987 launch of the Space Shuttle. NASA officials said they were confident the launch would be delayed about three months, since the critical elements of the booster rocket, the redesigned field joints, functioned perfectly during the test. (B Sun, Dec 30/87; NY Times, Dec 30/87; WSJ, Dec 30/87; W Post, Dec 30/87; W Times, Dec 30/87)
A Soyuz TM-3, carrying Colonel Yuri V. Romanenko and two fellow Soviet cosmonauts, Aleksander P. Aleksandrov and Anatoly Levchenko, parachuted to Earth about 50 miles from the town of Arkalyk in Soviet Kazakhstan. The three returned from the Soviet space station Mir, where Romanenko had set a new record of 326 days in orbit. (NY Times, Dec 30/87)
The motor section of an MX missile containing nearly 100,000 pounds of rocket propellant exploded at a Morton Thiokol, Inc. plant killing five workers. The explosion at the company's Wasatch Operations plant, 25 miles west of Brigham City, Utah, was the fourth major accident at the plant. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. Morton Thiokol also was the manufacturer of the Space Shuttle's booster rocket. (NY Times, Dec 30/87, 31/87; P Inq, Dec 30/87; W Post, Dec 30/87)
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