Shuttle Liftoff Canceled 31 Seconds Short : Blastoff Delayed for the Third Time by Mechanical Problem

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The delay-plagued shuttle Columbia was grounded today for at least 24 hours--its third delay in 19 days--because of mechanical problems that defeated a down-to-the-wire effort to launch the spaceship and caused the customer, RCA, to call off the launch.

The countdown came within 31 seconds of blastoff before it was halted. A fourth launch attempt was scheduled for 4:05 a.m. PST Tuesday.

“We’ll look forward to trying it again in the morning,” commander Robert Gibson told ground controllers.

It was a bitter disappointment for Gibson and his crew mates, including Rep. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), but they were smiling and appeared relaxed when they climbed out of Columbia’s cramped crew compartment.

Frustration Repeated

The shuttle fliers experienced a similar frustration Dec. 19 when the countdown stopped 15 seconds before blastoff because of electrical problems. That launch bid already was 24 hours behind schedule when unfinished work forced the first delay.

“It was a textbook-perfect countdown up until the final nine minutes,” NASA spokesman James Ball said of today’s launch attempt.

The final blow came when officials in charge of the RCA television-relay satellite in the ship’s cargo bay said they had to be off by 8:47 a.m. in order to have the satellite deployed under the proper conditions. NASA did not have enough time to meet that deadline.

Blastoff had been scheduled for 4:05 a.m. PST but a series of snags, including a balky fuel line valve, delayed the countdown as engineers scrambled to come up with a way to get Columbia airborne before its “launch window” closed.

Request From RCA

The request to postpone blastoff came from RCA American Communications Inc., owner of the $50-million RCA Satcom communications satellite. The satellite is the shuttle’s principal cargo and NASA is being paid $14.2 million to launch it.

“We’ve gotten the decision that the customer prefers not to go today without a better window,” launch director Gene Thomas told the crew. “We’re sorry this happened to us. We tried as best we could to make the count today.”

The other crew members are co-pilot Charles Bolden, Steven Hawley, George Nelson, Franklin Chang-Diaz, the first Hispanic-American astronaut, and RCA satellite engineer Robert Cenker.