February 4, 1984

Five astronauts rode the space shuttle Challenger into orbit today and deployed a communication satellite that later appeared to be lost in space. The satellite, owned by Western Union Corporation, was reported late tonight to be out of contact with the shuttle or any ground tracking stations. The North American Aerospace Command at Colorado Springs was searching the skies for the satellite. It was not clear whether the satellite's rocket ever fired to boost it toward its higher orbit.

Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have agreed to remove much of the anti-Administration language in a draft resolution calling for the early removal of the marines from Lebanon, but the document will still call for their ''prompt and orderly withdrawal,'' Congressional staff members said today. The staff members said the Democratic committee members also planned to add provisions to the resolution that are critical of Syria and the Soviet Union. President Reagan, speaking of the Democrats' call for an early withdrawal with or without any kind of political accord in Lebanon, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal today that the Speaker of the House, Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., ''may be ready to surrender, but I'm not.'' Solarz Urged a Revised Draft The agreement to rewrite the original draft resolution, which was sharply critical of the Administration's policy, came Thursday night at the urging of Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of Brooklyn, at a caucus of the committee's Democrats, aides said.

Four days before the start of the Olympic Winter Games, a bitter dispute is under way over the use of the Olympic flame for the Summer Games in Los Angeles. Nicolas Nissiotis, one of two Greek members of the International Olympic Committee, urged the body today to revoke its approval of a plan under which the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee would sell stretches of the route on which the Olympic flame will be carried next summer from Greece to Los Angeles. Greek officials in Sarajevo for the start of the Winter Games have voiced emotional opposition to the plan, objecting to what they contend is an unnecessary commercialization of the torch. They indicated that the issue could spill into the political arena, affecting already strained relations between the United States and Greece.

The national unemployment rate declined in January to 7.9 percent of the labor force, the Labor Department reported today. The drop of one-fifth of a percentage point continued a five-month trend that has brought the jobless rate to the lowest point since October 1981. The department also reported that two different measures of the number of people working showed gains. The figures seemed to suggest that the economic upswing had carried over into the new year, as most analysts had expected.

The Pentagon, ending weeks of speculation, announced today that it would split a contract to build advanced jet engines for the Air Force's F-15 and F-16 fighters between two rivals. The Air Force said it would award 75 percent of the first year's production to the General Electric Company and the remaining 25 percent to the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Group of the United Technologies Corporation, the current supplier of engines for the two Air Force planes. A split contract award had been widely anticipated in industry and Government circles in recent weeks, but the one-year term of the contract caught many analysts by surprise. Many wondered whether the term reflected strong 11th-hour lobbying by Pratt, which has enlisted powerful support in Congress to try to thwart the award to G.E. The Air Force said the one-year contract would be for 120 G.E. F-110 engines for use in the F-16 and 40 Pratt & Whitney F-100 engines for use in 20 of the twin-engine F-15's. The value of the contracts was not disclosed.