The Shuttlenauts Make a Great Catch

IMAGINE TRYING TO SEIZE AN ELEPHANT THAT IS spinning overhead by grabbing onto three makeshift handholds the size of soup cans. Then consider performing this feat swaddled in a 255-lb. rubber suit, suspended in midair, with no net. It , was a comparable challenge that confronted the Endeavour astronauts last week when they rescued Intelsat, a 4.5-ton 17-ft.-long telecommunications satellite, from its useless orbit 230 miles above the earth. In a record 8-hr. 29-min. space walk, with the world rolling by beneath them, Commander Pierre Thuot, Richard Hieb and Lieut. Colonel Thomas Akers wrestled the satellite into the shuttle's cargo bay and attached a rocket booster that would enable it to achieve its proper orbit 22,300 miles high.

Two previous attempts to reel in Intelsat with a spring-loaded capture bar had failed. Each time Commander Thuot tried to hook his target, the satellite just bounced away. After a day's reflection, the shuttle crew thought of a way to steady the satellite and allow attachment of the bar. The bold proposal involved an unprecedented trio of astronauts working together in the unforgiving vacuum of space. If Thuot, Hieb and Akers had not coordinated their actions exactly, they could have set the satellite wobbling so hard it might have crashed into the orbiter. Had either end of the capture bar hit one of the thrusters on Intelsat's rim, the resulting explosion of rocket fuel could have ripped through the men's space suits.

The bulk of the pressurized suits makes physical activity extremely awkward and quickly exhausting. Astronauts have found that their hands chafe sorely, particularly the fingertips, which can be rubbed so raw that the deltas, whorls and ridges of their fingerprints disappear. But the Endeavour crew accomplished its spectacular mission and, just for the record, completed a fourth jaunt in space before preparing for their scheduled return home.