(26 Feb 1996) English/Nat
NASA has ruled out attempting to recover a 443-(m) million dollar satellite that's lost in space after breaking free from its tether Sunday.
Officials say there is no risk of the shuttle Columbia colliding with the expensive piece of space junk. The half-ton device is hundreds of miles away and will eventually burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
Meanwhile astronauts Monday reeled in the broken tether.
The electricity-generating experiment ended abruptly Sunday night, five hours after it began.
The slender cord, one-tenth of an inch thick, was supposed to be unreeled to a distance of 12.8 miles (20 kilometres). It was nearly at that point when the break occurred inside a 40-foot (11 metre) tower in the shuttle cargo bay.
Ground controllers verified after a few anxious moments that the satellite and its 12.2 miles (19 kilometres) of dangling cord posed no danger to the seven astronauts.
If the cord had snapped higher up, the portion remaining attached to Columbia might have gone out of control and possibly even wrapped around the shuttle.
No evasive action was needed by the shuttle pilots. The satellite and tether were more than 18 miles away from Columbia within minutes after the break and hundreds of miles away within hours. The satellite eventually will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
Astronauts later said the tether appeared frayed and stripped and noted that its nylon and Teflon outer coating looked to be charred and melted. The satellite and cord were generating about 3,500 volts of electricity as they swept through Earth's magnetic
field.
During an orbital news conference, crew members described the scene.
SOUNDBITE:
Once we realised that the tether had broken at the very bottom then we understood that it posed no danger and at that point we tried to photograph it and we did see this big huge jumble of tether moving away from us with no end on it and after a few minutes it disappeared into the sunset and that's the last we saw of it.
SUPERCAPTION: Jeff Hoffman, astronaut
The astronauts told reporters on the ground that they were disappointed with the failure of the experiment.
SOUNDBITE:
Of course it's a big loss for the science, we were almost there I mean the scientific experiment had been working successfully so far till the time of the break.
SUPER CAPTION: Umberto Guidoni
Columbia crew also retracted the boom and the remains of the tether which had held the satellite.
They're trying to preserve the equipment used during Sunday's botched deployment in order to investigate the cause of the accident.
But the Columbia astronauts say failure doesn't mean you give up.
SOUNDBITE:
We can't learn unless we try so I have not lost my excitement about what we're trying to do up here in space, nor have I lost my enthusiasm.
SUPERCAPTION: Commander Andy Allen
Crew members were also asked about critics who say that the United States should curtail space research. They defended the research as very valuable, and argued that all such programs have failures.
NASA officials refused to speculate on what might have gone wrong but promised to find out. The shuttle is due to return March 7.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
