Gusty Winds Force the 5th Delay of Secret Shuttle Mission

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. —  Winds gusting up to 33 m.p.h. and clouds in the sky above Cape Canaveral forced the fifth consecutive delay of the space shuttle Atlantis early this morning.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, called the delay at 2:33 a.m. EST, four nights after the first launch attempt was scrubbed on account of an astronaut’s illness. The earliest chance for a sixth launch try would be Wednesday morning.

Weather analysts from the Air Force, which has chartered the 34th U.S. shuttle flight to loft a secret spy satellite into orbit, judged that the winds would not permit the shuttle to take off and return safely to the Kennedy Space Center if an emergency landing were to become necessary.

After the astronaut’s cold, foul weather and finally a last-minute computer failure delayed the launch.

Working throughout Sunday morning and afternoon, NASA engineers fixed the “Cyber B,” a back-up computer designed to ensure the safety of areas beneath the shuttle’s flight path, and began the countdown again.

The failure of the Cyber B had halted Sunday morning’s launch countdown with 31 seconds to go. While engineers unsuccessfully scrambled to bring the computer back up, the temperature in the shuttle’s main engine dropped below the permissible range and plans to proceed were scrubbed.

Sunday morning’s delay cost taxpayers $547,000 in labor and material expenses at Kennedy Space Center alone, since the shuttle was forced to jettison 500,000 gallons of fuel at the last minute.

The three earlier delays, which were called hours before countdowns were to have begun, cost $247,000 in added services.

The flight of Atlantis, the 34th flight of a U.S. space shuttle and the sixth shuttle flight entirely dedicated to a Defense Department mission, has a crew of five military astronauts. John O. Creighton, a Navy captain, is commanding the flight. Creighton’s scratchy throat and congestion prompted NASA to call off two earlier launch attempts. The other astronauts aboard Atlantis are Air Force Col. John H. Casper, the pilot, and mission specialists Marine Lt. Col. David C. Hilmers, Air Force Col. Richard M. Mullane and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Pierre J. Thuot.

While the Defense Department has shrouded Atlantis’s payload in secrecy, experts said that the shuttle is being used to carry a $500-million satellite called the KH-12 into space. The “keyhole” satellite would be the sixth in a constellation of U.S. craft designed to photograph and relay images of military and other installations, according to John Pike, a space expert with the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists.