Navigation Unit Fails, Delaying Shuttle Launch
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — A navigation unit aboard Discovery failed Wednesday and forced a one-day delay in the space shuttle’s mission to rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir.
The navigation device, called an inertial measurement unit, failed when workers tried to turn it on, National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokeswoman Lisa Malone said. The other two navigation units worked fine. All three must work for launch, which had been scheduled for early today.
Technicians successfully replaced the failed microwave-oven-size unit with a spare.
NASA had never switched an inertial measurement unit, which measures position and speed, so quickly. A similar problem on space shuttle Columbia in 1993 resulted in a two-day delay.
The cause of Wednesday’s failure was not immediately known.
Good weather is forecast for liftoff early Friday (late tonight PST) with the first female shuttle pilot, Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, and Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov among the crew.
Discovery’s rendezvous with Mir is practice for the first shuttle-Mir docking in June.
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