NASA Fixes Shuttle Problems

WASHINGTON -- NASA says it's well on the way to fixing the things the Challenger accident commission found wrong and that it has set a new target--the first quarter of 1988--for flying the space shuttle again.

"Instead of saying we will fix things that the Rogers commission felt were wrong, we are in the position of saying we are fixing things the Rogers commission found wrong," NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher told reporters yesterday.

He and Richard Truly, head of the shuttle program, held a news conference hours after Fletcher delivered to the White House a report on actions NASA has taken since the Rogers commission made nine major recommendations last month.

The report said space agency engineers are working on a completely new design for the booster rockets which caused the Jan. 28 Challenger explosion, as a contingency in case no other approach is found suitable for the joint seals on the boosters.

"We are going to take a look at designs that assume we can't use the existing base hardware," Truly said, while conceding a new design would make it impossible to meet a first quarter-1988 launch schedule.

"The reason we are doing it is that if we get into testing and we should have a test failure that shows our design analysis was inadequate, we'd have head start on an alternate approach," Truly said. "However, everybody that's been involved in the redesign believes there is a design available with the present hardware."

Fletcher said the space agency had responded favorably to each of the recommendations but said "there is one negative piece of news that came out after studying the problem in some depth."

He said the July 1987 flight resumption, which had been NASA's plan when became administrator two months ago, "was a little optimistic in view of the extensive tests that have to be done on the solid rocket motors before we feel comfortable flying again."

The interim report is expected to help the administration decide what to do about building a replacement for Challenger. The accident left the shuttle fleet with only three vehicles and unable to launch satellites.

A replacement for Challenger and enhancing the shuttle spare parts inventory would cost $2.5 billion.

Fletcher said he discussed the replacement shuttle extensively at the White House, but that there was no decision.