Shuttle Continues ‘Star Wars’ Tests

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Discovery’s astronauts poked a “Star Wars” probe back into space Friday for 24 hours of tests on the end of the ship’s outstretched mechanical arm, and got ready for a complex repair job.

Ground teams devised a last-ditch plan to get data from three scientific instruments that have been virtually idled because of two data recorders that have not worked during the flight.

The repairs, which the seven astronauts planned to attempt today, involved splicing cables and rerouting the flow of data.

“We’re either going to get 100% of what the recorders would have been getting or we’ll get nothing,” said National Aeronautics and Space Administration flight director Bob Castle.

As Discovery whirled around the world at 17,500 m.p.h., the probe’s infrared sensors and television cameras focused on the planet and atmospheric light, or aurora.

The day’s biggest experiment--observations of 60 pounds of rocket fuel discharged from an orbiting canister--took place Friday evening. The first two fuel observations were conducted Thursday while the “Star Wars” probe flew freely in space.

Officials of the Strategic Defense Initiative program, better known as “Star Wars,” had ordered the observations to help them develop sensors for use in tracking and destroying enemy missiles.