Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9003300055
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
The Titan 3 booster came down at 9:20 a.m. EST Wednesday, about the time the U.S. Space Command had predicted, said Army Maj. Thomas Niemann, a Space Command spokesman.
"We don't have any indication that it survived" the fiery descent through the atmosphere, Niemann said, but any fragments that made it to Earth would have landed in the Pacific southeast of Taiwan.
The uninsured Intelsat VI satellite, launched by the rocket March 14, is about 300 miles above Earth, a temporary position thousands of miles lower than it is supposed to be.
"We can keep it there for several months, if not up to a year," said Tony Trujillo, a spokesman for Intelsat, a 118-nation consortium that owns the satellite. "It's basically where we want to keep it for a while."
Officials of Intelsat and Hughes Aircraft Co., the satellite's builder, on Tuesday held their second meeting with officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to discuss rescue possibilities.
"Obviously, there are a lot of technical issues that have to be dealt with," Trujillo said. "But we're very heartened by NASA's willingness to explore the possibility with us."
The 5-ton Intelsat VI satellite was intended for a geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles high, from where it would have transmitted three TV channels and up to 120,000 telephone calls simultaneously.
The satellite wound up in its uselessly low orbit after failing to separate properly from the second stage of the booster.
Intelsat engineers managed to separate the satellite via computer commands.
by CNB