The prospect of even an abbreviated deployment of Spartan late next week will depend on how successful the shuttle astronauts are in conserving enough fuel to retrieve the observatory. But less doesn't yet mean enough for another Spartan rendezvous. The reusable satellite either malfunctioned or was released improperly on Nov. 21. An effort by the shuttle crew to quickly retrieve it sent the spacecraft into a slow spin. Spacewalking astronauts Winston Scott and Takao Doi corralled Spartan by hand on Monday.
Astronomers are eager for observations of the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere.
The high-temperature region, which is responsible for the genesis of the solar wind, is in a particularly dynamic period. Fluctuations in solar activity are believed to influence the Earth's climate and occasionally disrupt communications. Columbia's 70-hour conservation mode, which was to conclude late today, was initiated for a major physics experiment. However, its objectives dovetail into the conservation effort because the experiment requires the shuttle to maneuver as little as possible. Once heated to temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, the mixture is slowly cooled, solidifying at the rate of a half-inch to 1 inch per day.