Mission Control Center
STS-64 Status Report #11

Wednesday, September 14, 1994, 5 p.m. CDT

Discovery's crew on Wednesday checked out equipment that will be used
during an untethered spacewalk on Friday; continued work in support of
laser mapping of clouds, atmospheric and environmental conditions; and
began the process of catching up with a science satellite which has been
operating free of the Orbiter for two days. 

The two spacesuits were checked out by astronauts Mark Lee, Carl Meade and
Jerry Linenger and are ready to support the spacewalk on Friday.  They
also tested the small jet pack that will be used to fly free of the
Shuttle without tethers for the first time in 10 years.  Also tested
was an electronic checklist that fits on the forearm of the astronauts to
provide computer data on various aspects of the spacewalk.  While Lee
and Meade are in the payload bay, Linenger will assist with the
choreography from inside the Shuttle. 

Today, science activities with the Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment,
or LITE, continued with three data takes.  The science activities in
space are being coordinated with concurrent activities on the ground.. 

The astronauts also began targeting Discovery for a rendezvous and
retrieval of the SPARTAN satellite deployed Tuesday.  The furthest
distance the two reached prior to beginning the rendezvous was 60 nautical
miles.  Two small firings of the thruster jets on the Orbiter were
conducted today and the closing rate was about one nautical mile per
orbit. 

Flight controllers spent the day discussing options for rendezvous in the
event the Orbiter's radar system was unavailable during the final stages
of the rendezvous profile tomorrow.  The system did not lock on to the
satellite until about an hour after deploy.  The problem has not yet been
explained.  The rendezvous options without the radar system include using
the ground navigation data as well as using Discovery's on board star
trackers.  Though these procedures are not as precise and would require
slightly more propellant than normal, the propellant margins are adequate
to support a "no-radar" rendezvous and the crew and flight control teams
are trained for just such a scenario. 

The Robot Operated Materials Processing System (ROMPS) continues to
process semiconductor samples in canisters mounted on the side of the
payload bay. The operation, conducted remotely while the crew sleeps has
so far processed 78 of the 100 samples planned for the mission. 

The crew was scheduled to go to sleep at approximately 9:30 this evening
and wake at 5:23 Thursday morning.  Now more than halfway through
Discovery's 19th mission, the flight control team is not tracking any
systems problems aboard the Orbiter. 

-end-