Mission Control Status #22

                         MISSION CONTROL STATUS
                        STS-49 Status Report #22

May 15, 1992, 3:30 p.m. Friday, CDT

Endeavour and its crew of seven sailed into the ninth day of the
mission by preparing orbiter systems for the trip home Saturday
afternoon.

The checkout of the flight control surfaces for entry and landing went
well with no problems identified.  Checkout of the redundant nosewheel
steering system also was performed without incident.

One of the reaction control system jets failed because of a small leak
in its oxidizer system during the hotfire checkout of the thrusters,
but poses no impact to the entry phase of landing.

While the orbiter systems were checked out, crew members on the middeck
stowed the four spacesuits back in the airlock for the trip home.

In Mission Control, entry flight controllers worked any changes
necessary for Saturday's landing and received a complete weather
briefing from the Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space
Center.

The weather forecast for a landing at Edwards AFB on orbit 141 at 1:57
p.m. PDT remains favorable, but winds are expected to increase for the
two later landing opportunities.

Weather conditions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are marginal
for the first landing opportunity at that site, but are expected to
improve for the second at 6:43 p.m. EDT on orbit 142.

The weather conditions for Sunday and Monday at both Edwards and KSC
currently are expected to be unstable due to a cold front moving into
the southern California area increasing the possibility of high winds
and a tropical wave in the KSC area that could bring rain to the
vicinity.

Later today cabin stowage will be completed before going to bed at
11:40 CDT tonight.

Intelsat headquarters in Washington, D.C., reports that the Intelsat VI
satellite is in a 40,600 x 195 nautical mile orbit following the first
burn of its onboard liquid apogee motor.  Sunday and Wednesday the
satellite will commanded to fire the motor again to raise the low end
of the orbit up to 22,000 miles.

Thursday the motor will fire once again to lower the apogee or high
point of the orbit to circularize the orbit at 22,300 miles.  Friday
the antenna will be deployed putting the satellite in the proper
operating configuration.