From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!alice!sjb Newsgroups: net.columbia Title: A Few Minor Problems and Sinking of Boosters Article-I.D.: alice.730 Posted: Sun Jun 27 22:21:22 1982 Received: Tue Jun 29 07:28:37 1982 Columbia experienced a few problems with its experiments. Ken Mattingly and Henry Hartsfield had problems activating the experiments, including the first Getaway Special, designed at the Utah State University. Also, one of her steering jets experienced a small leakage, but the shutdown of it and its three related ones will not affect the flight. The shuttle's orbit is five miles lower than projected, due to the fact that more fuel was consumed in getting it there; this will not affect the flight either, but she will land 15 minutes earlier. The rain that soaked the ship yesterday will be baked out of the tiles when the ship is turned belly towards the sun. NASA has also reported that both SRB's have been located -- 3,500 feet under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. They would like to get them back, to find out why they sank, but they have not yet decided if it would be cost-efficient; it is not known if they could be re-used after that much exposure. It costs $25 million for a new one and $7 to refurbish a used one. the six used previously are now being refurbished. Factors that could have caused the sinking of these two include the fact that their parachutes were not jettisoned and these parachutes were those used on STS-1.