Evening star., 1962-01-23
Glenn Awaits
End Of Repairs
BY WILLIAM HINES
Star Science Writer

CATE CANAVEfLAL, ria
Jan. 23-Astronaut John H
Glenn faced another three days
of vexatious waiting today in
his planned space flight around
the world.
A faulty valve in the system
that feeds oxygen into his suit
while he occupies the Mercury
space capsule forced the delay
To correct the difficulty. dis
covered yesterday, it was nee
cessary for technicians to dig
rather deeply into the cap
sule's complicated plumbing.
The launching time accord
ingly was postponed from 7::3C
am. tomorrow to the same hour
on Saturday, at the earliest.
Weeks Delay Rumored
Reports persisted here today
that the postponement might
actually be until next Tuesday
January 80. Persons familiar
with the Mercury space craft
said a delay of this length
would be likely only if the
trouble diagnosed by engineers
was actually more serious than
that described by project
spokesmen.
Repair of an oxygen leak
might take two or three days
but certainly not a full week
these sources said.
This latest in a series Of
bugs" threw Col. Glenn's
"Mercury-Atlas 6" mission 81
days behind it's original sched-
ule. One delay was caused BY
trouble in the Atlas booster
rockets guidance system, but
the others occurred in the cap.
sule itself. 3
AS trouble shooters worked or
the one-and-a-half-ton, cone.
shaped spacecraft, Col. Glenr
went about his pre-flight rout.
ing. At his state of training
this routine. now amounts pri'
marily to keeping in shape.
This can be boring, accord.
ing to men who have gont
through similar "hurry-up-and'
wait" routines.
The 40-year-old Marine test
pilot was represented even be-
fore the latest postponemen'
as being anxious to get thu
mission over with.
Moon Shot Possible
Space experts, meanwhile
took renewed hope that thii
week might turn out to be 6
banner one after all. An at.
tempt to shoot an instrument
package up to the moons sur.
face has been hopefully place.
back into the schedule.
This shot, termed Ranger III
was postponed from 10 am
. yesterday when trouble was dis.
covered late last week in the
upper stage of its Atlas-Agens
B rocket system. Because only
a few days of favorable shoot.
ing time exist each month for {
, moon rocket attempt, it wa
feared Ranger III would have
; to go over until February.
However, it appeared yester'
, day that the Ranger shot ma!
be ready to go Friday afternoon
If so, it will be launched be.
tween 3 and 4 pm. that day. A
completely successful mission
; would see the payload crash
, onto the moon sometime Mon
day morning. One part of TIN
package would still be in work
ing order, but the rest would b,
destroyed by the impact.
A five in one, satellite
launching was still scheduled
for early tomorrow. This pay
load. officially named Com
posite I" but nicknamed Buck
, shot," consists of four Nav.
J instrument packages and on
put together by the Army En-
gineers.
An Air Force Thor-Able-Sta
: will launch the 220-pound pay
5 load into five separate but al
most identical 500-mile orbits.
While technicians swarmet
: over the tall rockets poised OF
launching pads here, the tow
of Cocoa Beach, 6 miles to thI
south, suffered the pangs of {
population explosion. A spokes
man for the National Aero
, nautics and Space Administra
ton estimated that 1000 new
media representatives were OF
hand.
- - 80