Aalice.442 net.space utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!npois!alice!sjb Sun Mar 21 21:25:45 1982 Shuttle News STS-3 is perched to go -- on time, tomorrow morning at 1000 EST, NASA hopes to launch the shuttle Columbia on its third, and longest, voyage into space. As of tonight, the countdown has been smooth and perfect. All systems had been turned on and checked out. However, the most difficult part of the countdown is still to come early Monday morning. Barring troubles, the shuttle should make its first on time blast off from pad 39A. Meanwhile, crews unloaded equipment arriving from Edwards. Though four hours late, everything should be ready by tomorrow's launch, in case an ``abort once around'' landing is forced. At Port Canaveral, the ships Liberty and Freedom started out to the Atlantic, where they will recover the two SRB's six minutes after they jettison from the shuttle. At around the time the SRB's splash down, the external tank will be jettisoned from the shuttle and will break up over the Indian Ocean. Officials decided not to paint the brown tank white, as done for the first two missions, to save $15,000 and 600 pounds. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.