Problems With Electricity Cell Might Curtail Shuttle Flight

with wire dispatches

Just six and one-half hours after a perfect morning launch, problems with an electricity-producing fuel cell caused flight controllers yesterday to consider curtailing the space shuttle Columbia's second mission from a planned five days to slightly more than two days.

Although the shuttle is now operating on a "minimum flight plan," National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officials are "very optimistic" that a full mission can be accomplished, as long as the two remaining fuel cells continue to function at acceptable levels, Mack Herring, a NASA spokesman, said last night.

"We feel good that we can play it one day at a time," Herring added, saying that technicians and specialists will make daily determinations as to whether the flight can be continued.

Astronauts Joe Engle and Richard Truly, who safety experts say have not been threatened by the malfunction, may still have to pilot the Columbia to a desert landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California as early as tomorrow afternoon after conducting an abbreviated series of scientific experiments and tests of the craft's robot manipulator arm.

The Columbia was lofted into a 137-mile high orbit by 6.4 million pounds of thrust from its three liquid fuel engines and by two rocket boosters, which trailed a thick column of white smoke as they burned their solid fuel.

"You won't believe this, but this is fun," Truly, who celebrated his 44th birthday yesterday, said to Mission Control after the craft achieved orbit. Engle said the launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was "very smooth."

Columbia's flight marks the first time a spacecraft has been used more than once. NASA plans two more test flights before the shuttle begins operational flights next fall.

The liftoff yesterday came at 10:10 a.m., ten minutes behind schedule, and eight days after low pressure in fuel cell tanks forced a "scrub" at the T-31 seconds point in the countdown.

The faulty fuel cell was taken "off-line" by the astronauts yesterday after a leak was detected in the catalyst which generates electricity by reacting hydrogen and oxygen. While mission flight operations rules dictate a minimal mission of 54 hours when only two fuel cells are working, the Columbia could still operate the full duration of its planned 124 hour, 83-orbit mission, a spokesman for United Technologies, which manufactures the cells, said yesterday.