Perfect Landing Ends Mixed Year Shuttle Missions Had Some High-Profile Failure In 1997

The space shuttle Columbia landed Friday in a mission that was typical of 1997 for the shuttle program: a mix of success with some high-profile failures.

After the picture-perfect 7:20 a.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center, NASA officials tried to put a good face on the 15-1/2-day mission and the entire year. Yet the landing came after one of Columbia’s major objectives - the release and operation of a solar satellite - failed.

The $10 million Spartan satellite never turned on because it did not receive a key computer command. As a result, the science mission to study solar activity and calibrate another satellite was lost.

Astronauts had to grab the satellite in a spacewalk because a first attempt to retrieve Spartan with the shuttle’s robot arm was unsuccessful.

NASA still is trying to figure out if the satellite’s failure to activate was do to computer or astronaut error.

Despite the problems, Columbia’s prime mission - studying the effects of near-zero gravity on metals, plants and crystals - went well. And two spacewalks successfully tested equipment needed to construct the international space station next year.

“It was a very exciting mission, we had a lot of different surprises in there and it was a very successful mission,” commander Kevin Kregel aid Friday. “Sure any time something doesn’t go as planned you’re a little bit disappointed.”

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, who was at KSC for the landing, said he was happy with the year-ending mission, adding “This is the space business. If it were easy we wouldn’t do it.”

Shuttle program manager Tommy Holloway gave the mission a success rating of “102 percent” despite the Spartan failure.

Columbia’s mission in a way was a metaphor for the shuttle program in 1997.

It was a year when every shuttle lifted off on the first launch attempt. Most missions were successful, but a bad fuel cell caused an April mission to be cut short and reflown three months later. NASA flew eight shuttles, tying a record.

NASA also launched a shuttle only three months after it had landed, a turnaround time the agency had not been able to accomplish in more than a decade.