Shuttle Crew in Practice Run

HOUSTON — Shuttle Discovery crew members fought off a make-believe engine failure and other deliberate malfunctions today at the Johnson Space Center in their final flight simulation before launch next month on the first post-Challenger mission.

Commander Frederick Hauck and his four-man crew went through a 56-hour simulated flight, the longest of three long-duration “sims” the crew has participated in to date. It marked a final chance for the astronauts and flight controllers to practice procedures in detail before Discovery is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in the last week of September.