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After three straight Mars missions failed this fall, NASA had planned to right itself yesterday with two launches: One putting a $1.3 billion Earth-observing satellite into space and the other sending the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to fix the dormant $6 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
First, a sensor glitch canceled the launch of an Atlas rocket carrying NASA's Terra satellite. Then NASA called off Discovery's launch because of a paperwork snafu and possible welding problem. NASA officials remained hopeful that they could fire the rockets today.
Glitches force troubled NASA to delay shuttle, satellite launches
NASA's day of redemption turned into another day of frustration yesterday when two billion-dollar rocket missions were delayed temporarily by lastminute problems.
After three straight Mars missions failed this fall, NASA had planned to right itself yesterday with two launches: One putting a $1.3 billion Earth-observing satellite into space and the other sending the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to fix the dormant $6 billion Hubble Space Telescope.
Then the gremlins struck.
First, a sensor glitch canceled the launch of an Atlas rocket carrying NASA's Terra satellite. Then NASA called off Discovery's launch because of a paperwork snafu and possible welding problem. NASA officials remained hopeful that they could fire the rockets today.
While frustrating, neither of the delays should hurt NASA's already tarnished image for long, space experts say.
The most recent delay arose from concerns about the strength of a weld on the shuttle's main propulsion system, NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham said. The company that did the weld had a problem on a separate fuel-tank servicing line on a spacecraft years away from being launched, but that raised questions about all their welds on Discovery.
NASA had hoped X-rays and paperwork would clear Discovery's questionable pipeline in time for the launch to go off on schedule, but when they didn't arrive yesterday, the launch was put off until 8:47 p.m. EST today.
Discovery's 10-day mission, which includes four spacewalks, is to repair the gyroscopes that keep the Hubble stable and to upgrade other systems.
NASA wants to launch the shuttle before Christmas and, for various technical reasons, has only two more tries, today and tomorrow.
The launch of Terra, the flagship of NASA's environment-oriented satellites, was delayed twice yesterday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. First, a glider flew nearby, delaying launch for 12 minutes. Then the ground-based computer system shut down the rocket 40 seconds before launch because of a sensor glitch.
NASA will try again at 1:33 p.m. today.
Copyright Post Gazette Publishing Company Dec 17, 1999