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

DATE: MONDAY, August 14, 1995                   TAG: 9508140115
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ATLANTIC                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLOSE BUT NO LAUNCH FOR ROCKET

The cause of the postponement was not immediately known and no new launch date was given. It is the fifth time the mission has been delayed since July.

The countdown reached one minute and 38 seconds at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility before officials put it on hold. On Saturday, high winds delayed the launch.

The five-story, 100-ton Conestoga rocket is topped by a one-ton METEOR transporter containing biomedical crystals, live plants and other experiments.

The mission of the rocket and its transporter is to measure such things as microgravity's influence on mixed liquids and how cold temperatures in space affect pipes.

Of the 14 experiments aboard METEOR, eight belong to NASA and the remainder were set up by private companies.

The Conestoga project will be the first orbital commercial launch from the 50-year-old NASA Wallops facility and its first orbital launch of any kind in a decade. Wallops usually launches suborbital rockets and weather balloons that study conditions in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

The four-stage rocket, named for the wagons that carried pioneers to the American West, and METEOR, for Multiple Experiments Transporter to Earth Orbit and Return, were designed and built by EER Systems Corp. of Vienna.

EER hopes the mission will generate business that could include delivery of packages to and from an eventual space station.

EER is one of approximately 250 aerospace companies that have set up operations in Virginia to take advantage of an expected growth in commercial space development.