Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990                   TAG: 9003152518
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A $150 MILLION COMMUNICATION SATELLITE WAS

The problems developed after the satellite failed to separate from a Titan 3 commercial rocket that was fired from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The errant satellite, if not lifted to a higher orbit, will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in about 12 days, said Maj. Dick Adams, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command at Colorado Springs, Colo.

Adams said Norad was not predicting whether debris from the satellite might strike the Earth.

He said the craft's orbit took the satellite mostly over the world's oceans, as well as southern Florida, southern Texas and the Hawaiian islands.

Previously, debris from both U.S. and Soviet satellites have struck the Earth.

The launching failure was seen as a setback for the nation's fledgling private rocket industry, which has successfully placed three satellites into orbit.

The industry has had two failures in launching sub-orbital rockets.

The satellite's owner, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or Intelsat, said late Wednesday that the satellite had failed to separate from the final stage of a Martin Marietta Titan 3 rocket.

To prevent the satellite from re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, it was commanded to separate in a way that jettisoned engines needed to lift the satellite into a useful orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth.