"The Patient Was Already Dead"

The landing, like everything else about the flight of Shuttle 51-D, was slightly behind schedule. Early-morning rains forced an extra-cautious NASA to send the Discovery on an additional orbit and delay its return by some 90 minutes. The touchdown was a bit rough: Discovery blew a tire as it rolled to a stop on the Kennedy Space Center's three-mile-long runway. Upon examination, the ship proved to have suffered more external damage than any previous shuttle--a dinner-plate-size hole near its wingtip and damage to 123 protective tiles. NASA will carefully assess the damage, but has no plans to cancel or postpone future scheduled missions.

From the very start, the mission seemed to have been somewhat jinxed. The launch, postponed and rescheduled five times, was even delayed during the final countdown when a cargo ship steamed into the area of the Atlantic Ocean where the booster rocket was expected to fall. The mission's thorniest problems, however, began the day following takeoff, 15 hours after the successful launch of a Canadian-owned communications satellite. The difficulty arose when the crew deployed a second satellite, a LEASAT communications instrument under lease to the Navy and insured for $85 million. The 20-ft.-long, 7 1/2-ton cylinder built by Hughes Aircraft's Space & Communications Group flipped out of Discovery's cargo bay exactly as planned. But the satellite's rocket failed to ignite, leaving the huge canister stuck in a 200-mile-high earth orbit, well below the 22,300- mile-high geosynchronous path it was supposed to follow.

For two days, NASA officials at Mission Control debated whether to attempt repairs. Hughes engineers theorized that the satellite might have failed because a hooklike "trigger" that projected from its side was not fully engaged. NASA officials agreed, but would not permit any of the Discovery team to leave the ship to work on the crippled satellite. The officials decided it was too dangerous for astronauts to perform unrehearsed work between objects as large as the rotating LEASAT and the shuttle, especially since the satellite's rockets were fueled.

Instead, a ground-based NASA "ingenuity team" decided to use the Discovery's 50-ft. Canadian-built robot arm to flip the LEASAT's switch into position. The arm is not equipped for such a task, and NASA ground crews had to coach the Discovery astronauts through the fabrication of attachments resembling flyswatters for the arm. While a ground team experimented with a duplicate of the arm, Discovery's "swat" team employed such mundane equipment as Swiss Army knives and a roll of duct tape to turn some plastic tubing, wire, a metal sunshade frame and plastic notebook covers into tools. The makeshift instruments, they hoped, would catch the trigger, initiating a 45-minute sequence that would culminate in the firing of the LEASAT's propulsion rocket.

The exercise required close coordination between earth and space. Astronauts Sally Ride and Mary Cleave, who are experienced with the robot arm, practiced flipping a replica of the switch at Mission Control. Other technicians tested duplicates of the manipulators in a special vacuum chamber to make sure they would withstand the airless chill of outer space.

When Discovery was 40 miles from the becalmed satellite, Astronauts Jeffrey Hoffman and David Griggs left the vehicle in their space suits and attached the flyswatters to the end of the projecting robot arm. Later, Commander Karol Bobko and Pilot Donald Williams maneuvered Discovery to within 35 ft. of the LEASAT. Astronaut Rhea Seddon took the controls of the arm to try to snare the satellite's firing switch. The attempt required Seddon, a trained surgeon, to move very carefully; too hard a shove could damage the arm or the satellite's solar panels.

Following Ride's warning from Houston that the LEASAT would have to be brushed with the delicacy of "a hand on a potter's wheel," Seddon made her first try at the lever. She missed. The next time that the satellite's slow rotation brought the trigger within view, Seddon made contact. On her third try, she also engaged the curved lever, tearing one flyswatter's plastic face, which was expected to happen when the hook was snared. On still another attempt, Seddon wielded the flyswatter like a broom, in an effort to sweep the lever into position.

Seddon performed the operation perfectly, within her six-minute limit. She may even have budged the switch. Unfortunately, as one observer put it, "the patient was already dead." The switch was probably not the problem. The trouble, said Hughes officials, appeared to be buried within the satellite's myriad components.

Seddon was ready for yet another attempt, but NASA was not. Fearful that the satellite's rocket might ignite and damage Discovery, the space agency abandoned the start-up attempt. "Discovery, the window is closed," radioed Mission Control. "Perform the separation maneuver."