Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 6, 1991 TAG: 9104060022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: CAPE CANAVERAL LENGTH: Medium
Streaking like a white-hot arrow through low cloud cover, the thundering space plane ended a four-month hiatus in manned flights. Its mission is the first of six slated for 1991, and NASA officials said they hope it marks the end of the constant harassment by technical gremlins that fouled the schedule last year.
"It's gotta be one of the best, if not the best," Kennedy Space Center launch director Robert Sieck said of the smooth countdown and liftoff.
Clouds and threatening showers delayed the liftoff less than five minutes past its 9:18 a.m. target.
Atlantis' crew of four men and a woman are to deploy the Gamma Ray Observatory in a 280-mile-high orbit on Sunday. Then on Monday, two of the crew are scheduled to take the first U.S. spacewalks since December 1985.
Cheered by large spring-break crowds who jammed nearby roads, the launch was the 39th for the shuttle program, which marks the 10th anniversary of its first flight this month.
Atlantis' commander is Air Force Col. Steven Nagel, 44, a veteran of two shuttle flights. His pilot is Marine Lt. Col. Kenneth Cameron, 41, a rookie astronaut. Mission specialist Linda Godwin, 38, a physicist, is making her first shuttle flight.
Scheduled to take a spacewalk Monday are Air Force Lt. Col. Jerry Ross, 43, who made the last U.S spacewalk in 1985, and physicist Jay Apt, 41. They are scheduled to step outside the shuttle's cabin and work outside for six hours testing equipment for constructing the space station.
The Gamma Ray Observatory is the second in NASA's series of planned "great observatories" designed to view the universe across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, revealing events and objects invisible to the human eye.
The observatory, which is to operate for at least two years, will study the most energetic, violent forces in the universe by detecting the gamma rays emitted by the events.
Though the launch of the observatory was initially delayed by the 1986 Challenger accident and other shuttle-related difficulties, gamma ray scientists express confidence that it will not suffer the technical heartbreak that has afflicted the Hubble, whose primary mirror has a built-in flaw.
For one thing, unlike Hubble, the Gamma Ray Observatory does not use mirrors. Instead, it relies on four independent detectors, which, unlike with Hubble, have been tested repeatedly on the ground while fully assembled. And the observatory does not require the precision pointing system of Hubble.
by CNB