Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!bbn!inmet!ishmael!inmet!authorplaceholder
From: fosler@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Atlantis misses by a hair
Message-ID: <146300003@inmet>
Date: 13 May 89 01:56:00 GMT
References: <4361@omepd.UUCP>
Lines: 15
Nf-ID: #R:omepd.UUCP:-436100:inmet:146300003:000:860
Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!fosler    May 12 21:56:00 1989


  From AvLeak, One of the two redundant range safety Cyborg computers failed
at 38 min. prior to scheduled launch.  Flight rules require that both the 
primary and backup systems be on line at liftoff.  The computer was brought
back on line in 18 min.  If the computer had not gone down, launch would
have occurred before the recirculation pump shorted.
  Recirulation pumps are activated 30 min. after start of the liquid hydrogen 
fast-fill cycle, when propellants are loaded in the external tank.  They
had been operationg 7hr. 45 min. when they shut down.  The pump shorted
because a sliver of metal contacted the exposed part of a pin in the
connnector between power supply and the pump.  NASA does not know the 
origin of the metal particles, which were solder, aluminum and steel.  There
is some belief that they came from the pump itself.

Carl Fosler