A delay in a space launch, ordinarily bad luck, turns out to be fortunate for a crew of University of Utah researchers.
"Hearts in Space," an experiment that mimics the human circulatory system, is scheduled to fly on the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-85. Launch was planned for mid-July, which meant that all components had to be working properly and integrated into the payload package in April.But during the integration process, data transmission for "Art Heart," the artificial-heart-equipped project, developed an electronic ailment. The crucial "blood flow" signal disappeared and did not return. The experiment was shipped back from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. to the U.'s Artificial Heart Research Laboratory, 803 N. 300 West.
Researcher George Pantalos and his team faced a last-minute glitch that would have forced the equipment to undergo more tests after landing. Meanwhile, the shuttle itself had a major glitch.
STS-83, the flight of Space Shuttle Columbia last month, was forced to return to Earth 12 days early when a fuel cell malfunctioned. Many experiments could not be carried out.
To make up for that, NASA decided to send Columbia into space again in early July - same payload, same mission, same crew. The new flight will be termed "STS-94," and it would launch around the first of July, said NASA spokesman Ed Campion.
The change forced NASA to reschedule three other shuttle flights, including Discovery's mission with "Art Heart." The latest announcement said that expedition will begin Aug. 7.
This delay gave Pantalos and his team time to find the problem and fix it - and they succeeded. "Art Heart" went back to Florida, and pre-launch preparations were completed successfully at Kennedy Space Center last week.
"We just verified that our ground data is good," he told the Deseret News.