Red Faces in the Cosmos

Salyut runs into trouble, but Columbia seems in no better shape

Few extraterrestrial ambitions have been declared more often by the U.S.S.R. than that of establishing permanent bases in space. In pursuit of this cosmic goal, the Soviets have launched a series of Salyut spacecraft that have been occupied by cosmonauts for periods of half a year or more. Now this program, often advertised by the Kremlin as a steppingstone to the stars, has suffered a serious setback. Last week Soviet officials acknowledged that the latest orbital station, Salyut 7, had experienced problems, though they vigorously denied British reports that the two cosmonauts were in danger of being marooned in space.

The 20-ton, cylindrical Salyut 7 was launched in April 1982. Its present occupants, Cosmonauts Alexander Alexandrov and Vladimir Lyakhov, rocketed aloft to go aboard last June. On Sept. 9, according to Western intelligence sources, the ship developed a leak in its propellant system that disabled half of its steering jets. Aviation Week & Space Technology quoted one U.S. space official as saying, "Salyut 7 is essentially dead in the water." Eighteen days later a Soyuz ferry ship loaded with a fresh crew and additional supplies exploded on the launch pad. The two cosmonauts escaped certain death by lifting off from the flaming launch site with a small escape rocket that let them drop down two miles away by parachute.

Belatedly acknowledging the mishap after it had been reported by Western intelligence sources, Soviet officials nonetheless insisted that the failure of the resupply effort in no way endangered the Salyut 7 cosmonauts. As if to prove the point, Moscow television last week showed Alexandrov and Lyakhov bantering with mission controllers. Still, after three months in orbit, the cosmonauts need fresh supplies of food, oxygen and fuel. To provide those materials, the Soviets last week launched an unmanned Progress 18 space "freighter" that was expected to dock with Salyut 7.

Some observers had thought the Soviets might attempt an emergency evacuation of the cosmonauts via their original Soyuz ferry ship (which is still attached to Salyut), so the decision to send up Progress 18 was regarded as an encouraging sign for the spacemen. Said veteran Soviet Space Watcher James Oberg (Red Star in Orbit): "There seems to be little real anxiety in mission control." However, as Oberg notes, Salyut's steering problems, combined with the launch-pad fiasco, show that the Soviets cannot yet manage replacement of crews on a regular, scheduled basis. Such a capability is a prerequisite for operating a permanent orbital station.

NASA, meanwhile, had its own difficulties. Last week the space shuttle Columbia was still resting in its hangar at Florida's Kennedy Space Center following the postponement of its launch scheduled for Oct. 28. Officials suspected there were flaws in the thermal insulation on the nozzle of one of Columbia's two strap-on solid-propellant booster rockets. Similar coating on a rocket nozzle recovered from the previous shuttle flight in August turned out, on postflight inspection, to be just a hairline away from burning through. Some space officials said that if the rocket had fired only a few seconds longer, it would have lost all directional ability and the spacecraft would have tumbled wildly out of control.

The delay was especially embarrassing to NASA because Columbia was to have carried into orbit the $1.1 billion European-built Spacelab. A self-contained scientific station, it will perform a wide variety of experiments while parked in the shuttle's open cargo bay. At Kennedy last week crews stripped away the questionable booster while tests continued on why the insulating material failed. NASA said that there would be no firm word on a new launch date before Nov. 1. Lift-off could take place as soon as Nov. 28, but if that "window" is missed, the next opportunity would not come before next February because of the alignments of moon, sun and stars required for Spacelab's astronomical experiments. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.