"It was a real beauty"

Shuttle, poised with space telescope Hubble, starts new age of astronomy

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Ushering in a new age of astronomy, the shuttle Discovery is poised in a high Earth orbit today after soaring into space Tuesday with the Hubble Space Telescope, mankind's most powerful observatory.

The ship sprinted from its Kennedy Space Center launch pad at 7:34 a.m., CDT, streaking into mostly sunny skies.

"It was a real beauty, wasn't it," said NASA Administrator Richard Truly.

Working from a record altitude of 380 miles for the space shuttle program, Discovery's crew of five planned to rise early today to deploy the $1.55 billion space telescope.

The deployment activities were scheduled to begin about 6:30 a.m., CDT, with activation of the shuttle's 50-foot robot arm.

With astronaut Steve Hawley operating the arm from a control panel inside Discovery, the mechanism will slowly lift the 25,000 pound, 43-foot-long telescope from Discovery's cargo bay.

If all goes well, Hawley will command the arm to release the Hubble about 1 p.m.

During the lengthy process, crew mates Bruce McCandless and Kathryn Sullivan will be standing by inside Discovery prepared for a spacewalk if mechanical difficulty develops.

The potential problem that concerns Hubble's engineers the most is that the winglike solar arrays that generate electricity for the telescope could fail to unfurl.

During the complex deployment process, the Hubble will operate on power from batteries lodged within the telescope. The battery power will exhaust itself in seven hours if the solar arrays have not taken over the power generating duties.

Preparations for the deployment began soon after liftoff.

At one point, cheering erupted from the observatory's ground control team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., when the Hubble's power systems were switched on for the first time in three days.

Hawley sent Discovery's robot arm through a series of maneuvers, verifying it was prepared for the deployment.

And the atmospheric pressure in the ship was lowered to cut in half the time McCandless and Sullivan would have to spend purging their bodies of nitrogen before undertaking a spacewalk.

On Wednesday, pilot Charles Bolden will man Discovery's IMAX camera to record the deployment activities so Earth-bound audiences can share in the experience later.

Once the telescope drifts free of Discovery, mission commander Loren Shriver will maneuver the shuttle 50 miles from the Hubble.

Hundreds of spectators jammed the roadways around the space center to watch Hubble's launch.

"Every astronomer should take the day off today," said a jubilant Edward Weiler, NASA's chief space telescope program scientist. "The thrill of the launch... those few seconds were worth the years of waiting.' Scientists compare the Hubble's launch in significance to the moment 17th century Italian physicist Galileo Galilei decided to raise a crude telescope to the heavens.

Also looking on was Rice University astronomer Robert O'Dell, NASA's original chief telescope scientist who now heads one of the Hubble observation teams.

"Nineteen years of my life and five of my friends sitting on that thing (Discovery)," said O'Dell of his long association with the project. "All the parts worked. Who could ask for more?' "It was quite a show," said University of Texas astronomer William Jeffreys, another principal investigator. "The real work, the real fun starts now.' Discovery lifted off three minutes into a six-hour launch period. Severe weather that interrupted some preparations on Monday moved on as predicted.

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

The interruption was caused by a computer software problem that indicated a liquid oxygen propellant drain valve had not closed, said Launch Director Robert Sieck.

After a quick assessment, engineers overrode the programming and commanded the valve to shut.

Later, George Sasser, Kennedy's director of shuttle engineering, blamed the surprise on an inadequately tested modification in the launch computer software that was made just three weeks ago.

At an altitude of 380 miles, Discovery has carried its crew as far from the Earth's surface as man has been since the final Apollo moon mission in 1972.

Hubble deployment sequence

On the second day of the mission, astronaut Steven Hawley will use Discovery's 50-foot robot arm to remove the telescope from the shuttle's payload bay. If necessary, mission specialists Bruce McCandless II and Kathryn Sullivan will don spacesuits, leave the shuttle's cabin and repair the Hubble in space.

First, Hawley attaches the robot arm to the Hubble and raises it 15 feet to the "low hover" position. Then he raises it another 12.5 feet to the "high hover" position, shown at left.

Hawley rotates the Hubble end-over-end approximately 150 degrees. The telescope's aperture door swings within a few feet of the shuttle's crew module. The Hubble comes to rest with the aperture door pointing slightly downward, toward the shuttle's tail.

The telescope's solar power panels and radio antennas are to be extended at 1 day, 2 hours and 20 minutes after launch.

The Hubble is scheduled to be released at 1 day, 5 hours and 23 minutes after launch during the shuttle's 19th orbit. At the time of release the shuttle's belly pointed forward into the direction of orbital motion, and the nose is pointed straight up. Thirty-two hours later, when the shuttle is 45 miles away, the aperture door is raised by remote control, allowing starlight to enter the telescope.

Sources: NASA; Sky & Telescope and Aviation Week & Space Technology magazines

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