USA: NASA ROCKET LAUNCH ABORTED AT THE LAST SECOND
(18 Dec 1995) Natural Sound A rocket launch by the U-S space agency NASA was aborted at the last second Monday when the engines ignited and then shut down. A NASA Spokesman said that a stuck oxygen valve apparently caused computers to halt the launch just a fraction of a second before the strap-on boosters were supposed to fire. The launch team at Cape Canaveral Air Station rushed to make sure the fueled Delta rocket and the X-ray telescope on board were safe. It was the fifth launch attempt in just over a week. For the first time, the wind was calm and everything seemed to be going well during the countdown. As the countdown progressed towards lift-off, there was a sudden hitch - a main engine cut off, causing black smoke to billow from the small auxiliary engines that fired. The unmanned rocket holds NASA's 195 million-dollar X-ray Timing Explorer, designed to probe collapsed stars, possible black holes and other hot, compact objects in the universe from a 360-mile-high Earth orbit. The 6,700-pound (3039 kilograms) satellite is about the size of a small bus. It was to have been NASA's first X-ray astronomy mission since the successful Einstein Observatory launched in 1978. The launch was initially scheduled for the end of August, but was delayed because of a Delta rocket malfunction earlier that month. A Korean communications satellite ended up in a lower-than-planned orbit, and rocket maker McDonnell Douglas grounded its fleet while investigating the problem. Then the weather interfered. High wind scuttled four launch attempts, beginning on December the tenth. Launch officials expect a delay of at least one week following Monday's engine shutdown, when the X-Ray Timing Explorer will be deployed to orbit the earth. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
