Shuttle Columbia Fixed Up, Ready To Fly

Ground control teams on Thursday began final preparations for launch of the space shuttle Columbia and a crew of seven on a 16-day research mission.

Liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center was slated for today at 2 p.m. EST or during a 2-1/2-hour period that follows.

The launching was postponed for a day, so technicians could insulate previously overlooked water cooling lines in Columbia’s cargo bay. A decision to protect the narrow stainless steel pipes, which have flown uninsulated since at least 1988, was made Tuesday. Mission managers feared ice might form in the lines, causing the piping to burst.

Technicians also repaired a flickering windshield display in Columbia’s cockpit as well as a launchpad sensor system that monitors the levels of potentially explosive hydrogen present during the final hours of the countdown.

“I think we have everything back on track,” said Loren Shriver, who chairs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s mission management team. Favorable weather was forecast.

Engineers were scheduled to begin loading Columbia’s large external fuel tank with propellants before sunrise.

Columbia commander Jim Halsell, pilot Susan Still, flight engineer Michael Gernhardt, payload commander Janice Voss and mission specialist Don Thomas were to begin boarding the spacecraft by midmorning. Joining the NASA astronaut crew will be Greg Linteris, an expert in combustion research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Roger Crouch, a space agency physicist who will fly as a guest researcher.

More than 30 major investigations are planned, all studying phenomena without the influence of gravity.