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Aalice.156 net.columbia utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!mhtsa!research!alice!sjb Thu Nov 12 17:56:30 1981 STS-2 shortened ``We'' have a...ahem...slight problem. Actually it is not so slight -- it will shorten STS-2 from 6 days to 54 hours, now due to land sometime Saturday afternoon. Soon ago (I'm glad my English teacher can't read that!) NASA reported that one of the three fuel cells had to be shut down as it was malfunctioning. While the ship needs only two, they decided that an abbreviated mission would be best as there might be some danger in the latter days. As of now, that is the only word I have heard -- I'm waiting for this evening's run of the AP wire to get more information. I also have no info. on how much of the arm and experiment work will be crammed into these next two days. If the mission indeed lasts 54 hours, it should land sometime around 1640 EST (high math) Saturday.

Now for good news: During orbits one and two, Engle and Truly successfully opened and closed the cargo bay doors without hitch. Unfortunately, they could not say the same for the color TV cameras, which did not work at all.

The SRB's splashed down into the Atlantic about 7 minutes after launch. They were found about an hour later, bobbing in heavy seas about 158 miles from Cape Canaveral. As seas were too high for divers to attach air hoses to drag them in, the ships Liberty and Freedom retrieved the parachutes and will stay with the SRB's until they can be towed in. There was no word as to whether or not Russian ships tried to get to them as they did during STS-1.

-------------------------- And now for a few words on the Challenger and others: Half finished, the Challenger, second in a line of four shuttles, must be completed by next summer as it is to fly in 1983. When it does fly, Columbia will be briefly taken out of service to be upgraded while the Challenger is used. The third and fourth shuttles (Discovery and Atlantis) are due at one year intervals from Challenger's roll out.

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