Shuttle Crew Tests Robot TV System, Packs Up for Return

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. —  The six astronauts on the space shuttle Columbia wrapped up work with a robotic vision system Saturday and stowed their gear for the return to Earth.

Columbia was scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 9:06 a.m. EST today, 10 days after blasting off on the satellite delivery and research mission.

NASA flight director Jeff Bantle said there was a possibility that fog might delay today’s touchdown, but the weather was expected to be fine for a second landing attempt one orbit later at 10:39 a.m. EST.

Mission Control couldn’t resist a little Halloween humor Saturday. Controllers played the song “Monster Mash” for the crew’s wake-up call and included a pattern for a cutout mask in flight plans radioed to the shuttle. The mask was of Moe of the Three Stooges.

The astronauts spent their last full day in orbit testing a computerized television system designed by the Canadian Space Agency to improve the efficiency of the shuttle robot arm during satellite captures and space-station construction jobs.

They released an 8-foot-by-4-foot aluminum panel from the end of the crane and then tracked the object with the vision system as it drifted away, 130 miles above Earth.

Columbia flew in formation with the tumbling, black and white panel from a distance of 140 feet for nearly half an hour and then moved away. Canadian astronaut Steven MacLean was able to track the panel from as far away as 1,000 feet.

Lloyd Pinkney of Canada’s National Research Council said the computer and TV camera system accurately judged the distance to the panel, although shuttle jet firings and sunlight hampered visibility at times.