Shuttle trips scrapped

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 10

Shuttle trips scrapped

NZPA-AP Washington N.A.S.A. has announced it is scrubbing its next three space shuttle flights because of the Challenger explosion. Included in the postponement are missions to Jupiter and the sun that were to have been launched from shuttles. The planetary opportunities will not come again for 13 months. The United States Air Force is proceeding with preparations for the launch of a shuttle in July from its new spaceport in California — with a hope that N.A.S.A. will be able to quickly determine the cause of Challenger’s demise. The next shuttle,

scheduled for March 6, was to have carried astronomical instruments to observe Halley’s Comet, which will disappear from view before another American manned spacecraft can go aloft — missing a scientific opportunity that comes only once in 76 years.

William Graham, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s acting administrator, said the decision yesterday to postpone the planetary missions was based on the fact that crews needed to prepare and launch the spacecraft are tied up with the investigation of the Challenger accident. Challenger was to have carried the Ulysses mission on May 15 and it was

specially modified to carry a Centaur rocket in its cargo bay to send the spacecraft on its way. Ulysses was to have been, sent to Jupiter to get a gravity-assisted boost to send it to the sun, where it was to go into a polar orbit. The shuttle Atlantis was similarly modified to launch the Galileo spacecraft atop a Centaur rocket to orbit Jupiter and send a probe down to the planet. The mission was to have begun on May 20. “The air force preparations at the new launch complex at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, are continuing with an eye toward a July 15 launch to ensure that we are ready if the investiga-

tion is completed,” the service said. Air Force sources said it was virtually a certainty that the first launch of a shuttle after the investigation was finished would be performed at Cape Canaveral, Florida. “The Washington Post,” quoting unidentified Defence Department officials, said at the weekend that the Vandenberg site was being prepared because military officials had received informal advice from N.A.S.A. officials that the cause of the Challenger explosion had been located. The Air Force has been building a SUS2.B billion ($5.2 billion) shuttle complex at Vandenberg since 1979.