Shuttle flight delayed.

Shuttle shuttle: see loom.

shuttle

In the weaving of cloth, a spindle-shaped device used to carry the crosswise threads (weft) through the lengthwise threads (warp). Not all modern looms use a shuttle; shuttleless looms draw the weft from a nonmoving supply. flight delayed

The space shuttle's return to flight has been postponed from NASA's June 2 launch date, following the discovery that one of the newly designed parts of the solid rocket boosters Solid rocket boosters (SRB) (or motors, SRM) are used to provide the main thrust in spacecraft launches from the launchpad up to burnout of the SRBs. Many launch vehicles include SRBs, including the Ariane 5, Atlas V, and the NASA Space Shuttle. had failed during a test-firing on Dec. 23. The test, held at contractor Morton Thiokol's facility near Brigham City Brigham City, city (1990 pop. 15,644), seat of Box Elder co., N Utah; inc. 1869. It is the center of a large farm area served by the Ogden River project. Sheep, cattle, wheat, sugar beets, and orchard fruit are raised. , Utah, had appeared successful. But engineers subsequently found a piece missing from a carbon-phenolic composite ring designed to hold a flexible "boot" that protected the rocket nozzle's mounting from exhaust gases Exhaust gas is flue gas which occurs as a result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline/petrol, diesel, fuel oil or coal. It is discharged into the atmosphere through an exhaust pipe or flue gas stack. .

NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA
in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Independent U.S. officials said this week that it would take several days to assess the length of the delay but that the launching would be forestalled by at least several weeks, and some speculation ran as high as several months. An interim version of the redesigned boot worked successfully during the rocket motor's first full-scale test-firing in August (SN: 9/5/87, p.151), but the version that failed last week, said a NASA official, had never been in a test-firing at all. The failure of the boot ring, said NASA, had no connection with the O-ring seals between the segments of the booster's casing, whose failure has been blamed for the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion of the shuttle Challenger.

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Title Annotation:	space shuttle
Publication:	Science News
Date:	Jan 2, 1988
Words:	202
Previous Article:	Celestial sandpaper: grit from the stars. (stellar silicon carbide found in meteorite)
Next Article:	326 days in space. (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko)
Topics:	Rockets (Aeronautics) Testing Rockets (Vehicles) Testing Space shuttles Planning

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