A Hot-Wiring Job in Orbit

By Leon Jaroff.

As one of the shuttle Discovery's television cameras recorded the dramatic moment, a 7 1/2-ft. antenna folded against the topside of the LEASAT 3 communications satellite suddenly began to move. "Here she comes," exulted William Fisher to his space-walking companion, James van Hoften, "looking good, buddy." As the antenna reached its final upright position, Fisher could not contain himself. "Allll riiight!" he shouted.

After circling lifelessly in a low-earth orbit ever since its launch during a Discovery mission last April, the $85 million satellite had finally stirred, apparently revived by the astronauts' daring rescue operation. LEASAT last week was responding to commands from ground controllers, raising hopes that it could be lofted next month into geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the earth to take its place in a Navy communications network.

The capture, repair and redeployment of LEASAT 3 was the highlight of the seven-day flight of Discovery, which ended in triumph last week after a halting, tension-filled start. Proclaimed NASA Official Jesse Moore, after the five-man shuttle crew made a predawn landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California: "It was a beautiful mission from the outset." Well, not exactly. Discovery's launch had been postponed twice at the last minute, first by bad weather, then by a faulty backup computer. The third try seemed doomed to failure too when the storm system that later spawned Hurricane Elena darkened the sky and began pelting Cape Canaveral with rain shortly before launch time. But NASA officials were determined to make this one good. Stretching the agency's own rules, which forbid blast-offs in the rain or through clouds that could generate lightning, they spotted a thinned-out area of clouds overhead and ordered a launch. As Discovery burned its way into the mist, Commander Joe Engle laconically described his surroundings: "That's a black cloud."

Once safely in a 219-mile-high orbit, Discovery's crew members set about inspecting the condition of its cargo, three communications satellites, and promptly ran into trouble. As they were attempting to temporarily open the sunshield on AUSSAT, an Australian satellite, the shield snagged on AUSSAT's antenna and stuck. Although the astronauts managed to nudge the sunshield completely open with Discovery's 50-ft. robot arm, NASA decided it was too risky to close the screen again; if it could not be reopened, the satellite would be useless in orbit.

The astronauts were immediately faced with another dilemma. With its screen open, AUSSAT, which was scheduled to be deployed the next day, would probably be disabled by solar radiation while it sat unprotected in Discovery's open payload bay. The solution: AUSSAT was launched only 6 1/2 hours later, shortly before ASC1, a commercial satellite, was successfully deployed as planned, both on the first day in orbit. LEASAT 4, another orbiting link in the Navy's communications system, followed on schedule two days later.

The astronauts also supervised a commercial crystal-growing experiment and snapped pictures of themselves and the earth below. Meanwhile, Discovery was closing in on the dormant LEASAT 3, finally edging to within 35 ft. of the 15,200-lb. satellite. Garbed in his space suit and waiting in Discovery's air lock, Astronaut Van Hoften, nicknamed "Ox" because of his exceptional strength, could hardly wait. Said he: "I'm ready to go after that guy." He slipped into a foot restraint at the end of the robot arm, which was extended by Astronaut John Lounge to place Van Hoften within inches of LEASAT. That maneuver, as well as others involving the arm, took longer than planned because of the failure of the arm's computer controls; Lounge had to move each of the three arm joints separately by manual control, a painstaking, timeconsuming process.

Reaching out to the satellite, which was spinning at the rate of 1 1/2 r.p.m., Van Hoften attached a grappling bar to LEASAT, gave it "a little bitty push" to stop its rotation and then held on while the arm brought him and LEASAT to the edge of the payload bay. There, in a space suit and anchored to the edge of the bay by foot restraints, Astronaut Fisher removed panels, connected wires and attached an electronic black box that in effect hot-wired < the satellite, bypassing the faulty timing device that had caused all the trouble.

After seven hours outside, and delayed by the slow movement of the arm, the astronauts re-entered Discovery to rest and replenish the oxygen and cooling fluid in their space suits. Next day, after Fisher had completed his repairs, Van Hoften used his muscle power to position LEASAT properly, set it spinning to 3 r.p.m. and shoved it away from Discovery. "There that bad boy goes," he said, as he waved to the receding LEASAT.

For NASA, Discovery's LEASAT rescue, in addition to its successful deployment of three satellites, was welcome news indeed. The space agency earned about $55 million for its efforts, restored some of the shuttle's luster and underlined the craft's advantage over its only competitor in the commercial satellite-launching business: the European Space Agency's unmanned Ariane rocket. "This repair demonstrated the value of sending people into space," said NASA's Moore, "and I hope that reminds everybody of the shuttle's capabilities."

With reporting by Jerry Hannifin/Kennedy Space Center