The Nation - News from April 1, 1988

Technicians at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida discovered loose insulation on a booster rocket and scheduled overnight tests to determine if the problem is serious enough to delay the first post-Challenger space shuttle flight. The separation of the insulation from the booster casing was discovered on the bottom edge of one of four segments of the right rocket, officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. They said that, if the separation of the insulation has not spread beyond that area, it could be fixed without affecting the Aug. 4 launching. If the separation extends deeper into the insulation, the segment might have to be returned to the Morton Thiokol plant in Utah for repair and another segment substituted.