During launch delay, Cornellians eased the tension by switching gears

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

The 13-story Boeing Delta II rocket that was to lift the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft into the path of two and maybe three comets stood ready for liftoff on Launch Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, Fla. With enough fuel for 600,000 pounds of thrust, the rocket's countdown was proceeding toward liftoff at 2:56 a.m. Monday, July 1.

Photos by Robert Barker/University Photography Robert Cowie, a member of the Friends of Astronomy, a space sciences alumni support group, an emeritus trustee and presidential councillor, reacts to a comment during a mission briefing in Port Canaveral, Fla., prior to the launch.

Brian Carcich, manager of the CONTOUR science data center at Cornell, relaxes with his grandmother, Lucy Rerecich, 96, during the launch delay. Carcich's mother and great aunt also joined him in Florida for the launch.

James Bell, assistant professor of astronomy, relaxes poolside during the launch delay with his two children, Dustin, 11, and Erin, 7.

But, on Thursday, June 27, with Cornell alumni and administration officials beginning to arrive for prelaunch activities, the countdown came to a sudden stop. A grim-faced Joseph Veverka, the mission's principal investigator, walked into a meeting with his science team the next morning and announced that the mission was delayed until July 3.

The problem? Dust. A nearly imperceptible, fine layer of dust particles had accumulated on the spacecraft's solar panels. It was enough dust to impede the spacecraft's energy source, and there was concern that it could ruin the imaging, tracking and spectrographic instruments.

For five years, Cornell and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, CONTOUR's mission manager, had worked to build, test and ensure that the 2,100-pound spacecraft would carry the most advanced equipment to acquire a vast store of new data about comets while racing past a comet's nucleus at close to 60,000 mph. Now the mission seemed stalled by contamination by dust particles, probably, according to mission officials, the result of human error. And for two tense days, mission organizers and the hundreds of Cornell supporters present for the liftoff watched and wondered if the dust might postpone the mission even further.

Veverka, a Cornell professor of astronomy and chairman of the department, told his colleagues that technicians had noticed the dust as the spacecraft was being loaded onto the rocket and as the fairing (the rocket's breakaway nose-cone portion) was being secured. The problem, he said, required a thorough cleaning of the spacecraft while atop the rocket. The mission, he added, had to proceed during a July 1-to-July 25 launch "window." Tersely, he remarked, "If we do not launch, we'll have a much different mission."

Karen Jewett of Cornell's San Francisco alumni office, Karen Weinrich of the Miami office, Sherry Atkinson of the Houston office and Ann Landau, a Cornell alumni volunteer, started calling all the alumni and friends as soon as they learned of the launch delay.

"We had to call all those people individually," said Jewett. "We talked to a lot of answering machines."

Kathy May, executive assistant to Veverka, and Laura Lautz, space sciences education and outreach coordinator, began contingency plans upon hearing the news.

"Our guests came to Florida expecting a program, and we decided to continue with it," said May. "With the launch rescheduled, some of the events were shifted to Tuesday [July 2], and we needed to help our guests adjust to those plans."

On the brighter side, guests now had time to visit nearby Orlando, to soak up sun on the beach and splash through the local water parks. "Our guests were making the most of it. We helped them shift gears," said May. "While they were waiting, we thought, they might as well have fun."

Having arrived in Port Canaveral after spending the previous week walking across England, alumna Mary Ose '72 and her friend Linda King said they took the news well. "Never a dull moment, but we came prepared for postponements," said Ose.

Shirley Norton '52, who had attended her 50th reunion in June, came to the launch with family members, then used the delay to dash across Florida to visit more family in Tampa.

The launch would be a memorable experience for the Blaser family. Susan Stauffer Blaser '71 brought her mother, Ruth Stauffer '41, her son, Neil, age 11, and her husband, Don. "Neil is very psyched about CONTOUR," said Don Blaser.

As it happened, on that evening the Cornell Department of Astronomy and Cornell Alumni Affairs were hosting a dinner at the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory at Brevard (County) Community College.

Veverka and the other mission administrators arrived late for dinner, looking optimistic. It was left to David Jarrett, the program manager for NASA's Discovery program, to make the official announcement. The spacecraft had been cleaned and was declared free of dust. The CONTOUR mission would go ahead at 2:47 a.m. July 3. The guests applauded, and smiles returned to the mission scientists' faces.

Earlier in the evening, the guests had heard a lecture from Yervant Terzian, the David Duncan Professor in Physical Sciences at Cornell. He had promised: "We'll have a blast. A real blast."