Shuttle soars into orbit with Hubble

Telescope mission hailed as new age for astronomy

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The shuttle Discovery and its crew of five astronauts soared high into orbit today with the Hubble Space Telescope, ushering in what scientists hail as a new age in astronomy.

The ship and the $1.55 billion space telescope roared off the Kennedy Space Center launch pad at 7:34 a.m., Houston time, three minutes into a six-hour launch period.

If all goes well, Discovery's crew will hoist the 25,000-pound, 43-foot-long telescope from the shuttle's payload bay on Wednesday.

"Every astronomer should take the day off today," said a jubilant Edward Weiler, NASA's space telegram program scientist. "The thrill of the launch ... those few seconds were worth the years of waiting.' Also anxiously watching was Rice University astronomer Robert O'Dell, the program's original chief scientist.

"Nineteen years of my life and five of my friends sitting on that thing," O'Dell said of his long association with the project. "All the parts worked. Who could ask for more.' Thousands of spectators packed the roadways surrounding Kennedy to watch the historic launch.

Severe weather that at times interrupted final launch preparations cleared overnight, permitting Discovery to streak into mostly sunny skies.

An otherwise smooth countdown provided nearly three minutes of drama at the 31-second mark when ground computers would not hand over control of the remainder of the count to Discovery's computers.

The interruption was caused by a computer software problem that indicated one of the ship's many liquid oxygen fuel valves was out of position.

When engineers confirmed that the valve was correctly in place, the count resumed to the wild cheers of spectators.

The space agency's first attempt to launch the telescope on April 10 was stopped by a mechanical problem four minutes before liftoff.

Aboard Discovery are mission commander Loren Shriver, 45, an Air Force colonel, and pilot Charles Bolden, 43, a Marine colonel, and three mission specialists.

They are Steve Hawley, 38, an astronomer; Bruce McCandless II, 52, a Navy captain; and Kathryn Sullivan, 38, a geologist.

After liftoff, Shriver and Bolden maneuvered Discovery toward an altitude of 380 miles, a record for the 9-year-old space shuttle program and the most distance American astronauts have been from the Earth's surface since the final Apollo moon mission in 1972.

The shuttle astronauts plan to use their unusually high vantage point for a series of Earth observations once the telescope is released.

Shuttle crews typically work from an altitude of 200 miles or less. No Soviet crew has ever attained the Discovery altitude, though NASA's Gemini astronauts exceeded it on a couple of occasions.

In July 1966, Gemini astronauts John Young and Mike Collins used a booster rocket to push them to a 475-mile orbit. Two months later, Gemini astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon vaulted briefly to 850 miles.

Discovery's altitude is necessary to place the Hubble telescope high above the distortions and pollution of the Earth's atmosphere.

The telescope's mission is designed for 15 years, though it will have to be boosted and serviced periodically by visiting space shuttle crews.

"Hubble is about to change our perception of the universe in very profound ways," said Lennard Fisk, NASA's associate administrator for space science.

The Hubble's 94.5-inch observing mirror should permit it to look at the outer planets of our own solar system and even more distant objects with 10 times the clarity of the best ground telescopes.

With its great sensitivity, the space telescope can function as a sort of time machine gathering in light from the early days of the universe that eludes less capable ground-based instruments.

The space telescope is one of NASA's most glamorous and complex payloads and its most expensive unmanned project to date.

It is also the cornerstone of the agency's Great Observatories program, which includes gamma ray, X-ray and infrared telescopes NASA expects to launch by the turn of the century.

The Hubble's power systems were activated today about 4:30 a.m., about two hours before the Discovery astronauts were awakened.

The activation was the first in a lengthy series of steps today and Wednesday that will lead to the telescope's deployment.

After reaching orbit, the Discovery astronauts lowered the pressure in the crew compartment from the normal 14.7 to 10.2 pounds per square inch.

That step was taken to cut to two hours the time it would take McCandless and Sullivan to prepare for a space walk if one is needed to successfully place the Hubble into space.

If there are no difficulties, Hawley will turn on Discovery's robot arm early Wednesday.

From a control station inside Discovery, the astronomer will command the arm to lift the telescope from the payload bay.

Before he does so, the power supply to the observatory from the space shuttle will be cut. At that point, Hubble will have about seven hours of electrical power from its batteries.

With the telescope suspended by the arm above the cargo bay, a series of commands from ground controllers will cause communications antennas to swing into place and electricity generating solar arrays to unfurl.

If those events occur on schedule, Hawley will release the telescope about mid-day.

Once Hubble is in free flight, Shriver and Bolden will carefully back Discovery away. The shuttle astronauts will stalk the telescope from a distance of about 50 miles while ground controllers test the telescope's response to their commands.

A large door that covers the opening of the telescope will be signaled to open late Thursday or early Friday, allowing light to enter.

If the door fails to move, Discovery would rendezvous with Hubble so the spacewalkers could attempt to perform the task manually.

Efforts to develop an orbiting observatory actually began about two decades ago. NASA first planned the mission for a 1983 shuttle launch, then in late 1986. The Challenger accident on Jan. 28, 1986 led to new delays.

The date was set for last December after the accident, then March and finally April of this year.