(25 Nov 1996) English/Nat
The space shuttle Columbia will retrieve one of the satellites released during its latest mission a day earlier than planned.
The U-S space agency NASA decided to change its scheduled plans for the Wake Shield satellite following concerns over a possible collision in space with a trailing telescope which was travelling too fast.
The crew of Columbia woke to the tune of Steve Winwood singing "roll with it baby" on Sunday morning - and that's just what NASA wanted the astronauts to do.
Mission control asked the crew to be prepared for a change in plans that would require them to retrieve a satellite early Monday rather than Tuesday.
SOUNDBITE:
"Good morning Story. We may think we may have to call on you guys to roll with it a bit today. Overnight we noted SPAS getting just little bit closer to Wake Shield. I wanted to give you a heads up that we're looking at the criteria that might require you to go in and do a retrieval at the end of today.
SUPER CAPTION: Mission Control
That message was prompted by the fact that the S-P-A-S telescope was travelling quicker than expected.
The telescope and the Wake Shield satellite were set loose from Columbia last week.
The Wake Shield is trailing Columbia, with the telescope not far behind.
But there were certain concerns.
Flight controllers thought that the telescope was travelling faster than expected.
And if the astronauts waited until early Tuesday to retrieve the semiconductor saucer there were fears that it would be too close to Columbia.
When the shuttle picks up the dish, it's supposed to make a nine-mile swing around the satellite before capturing it, which flight controllers worried would put Columbia and the telescope dangerously close.
NASA safety rules stipulate that the two satellites have to be at least 12 and a half miles apart when the astronauts go in to grab the semiconductor saucer.
SOUNDBITE:
"When it didn't stall out at 29 we started to run some of our models. We began to be concerned that we may not make that eleven nautical mile distance on Monday. So that precipitated a number of options, one of which being an early retrieval on flight day 6, on today. We're doing everything we can to gain confidence in the on-board performance of from the trajectory standpoint. That's what we put our time in today, Dan and I, to make sure we understand that relationship between SPAS and Wake Shield so we can optimize our capabilities to give all the science time that they're planning in terms of growth time. That is our goal."
SUPER CAPTION: Rob Kelso, NASA
But late Sunday NASA told Columbia's astronauts to leave the semi-conductor growing satellite in orbit as planned.
The crew went on with its original schedule of experiments after
mission control determined that the gap between the satellites would be adequate and that an early Monday retrieval was no longer required.
However, flight directors did push up the rendezvous by three hours, so it will be grabbed late Monday night.
As of Sunday night, the two-ton Wake Shield trailed Columbia by 25 miles, with the ultraviolet telescope 25 miles farther back.
Astronaut Story Musgrave gave the crew on the ground points for their flexibility.
SOUNDBITE:
"We want to congratulate the Wake Shield people for fantastic work, for just running along and guarantee they got it all their science done even if we had to do an early rendezvous."
SUPER CAPTION: Story Musgrave, Astronaut
The Wake Shield is growing semiconductor film that is expected to be purer than semiconductors grown on Earth.
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