CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla -- Seven hours after reaching orbit Friday, the shuttle Columbia crew dispatched a $1.5 billion X-ray telescope in space, completing the primary goal of NASA's 95th shuttle mission.
"Houston, we have a good deploy," commander Eileen Collins radioed to flight directors at Mission Control after her crew released the telescope at 7:47 a.m. EDT. "Chandra's on its way to open the eyes of X-ray astronomy to the world."
Said astronaut liaison Robert Curbeam from Mission Control,
"We'd like to congratulate you on a flawless deploy." Collins then gently backed the shuttle away from the observatory, which used its own upper-stage booster to reach its final orbit - a perch that will take the telescope one-third of the way to the moon.
The telescope, called the Chandra X-ray Observatory, is a counter part to the Hubble Space Telescope, which can see visible and ultraviolet light, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which images high-energy gamma radiation. NASA plans to complete the so-called Great Observatory program with the launch in 2001 of an infrared telescope.
X-ray radiation, which Chandra will be able to image, is emitted by some of the most violent and puzzling celestial phenomena, such as the whirling discs of hot gas and dust that rim black holes.
"Chandra will answer many long-standing questions about the high energy universe," said NASA's space science chief Ed Weiler. "But if it's truly successful, it will enable us to pose questions we cannot even dream of today. And that's what the adventure of science is really all about."
The shuttle blasted off at 12:31 a.m. after two launch delays. The spaceship safely reached orbit 8/1/2 minutes later despite two problems during liftoff. Five seconds after launch an electrical short momentarily crippled two of the shuttle's main engine computers. Each of the three main engines has two controllers, so the shuttle and its crew were never in danger.
The orbiter also ended up about 7 miles lower than planned, short about 4,000 gallons of liquid oxygen to reach its intended initial l orbit. Shuttle managers were not sure if engineers miscalculated the amount of gaseous oxygen needed for launch, or if the gas somehow was too warm or otherwise partially impaired.
Columbia is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday night.
advertisement
