Shuttle Telescopes Collect Clear Images of Sun : Repairs Enable Crew to Study Solar Storm in Spectacular Burst

Space agency scientists on Wednesday gathered some of the clearest images of the sun ever obtained after a balky telescope platform was repaired aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

At one point the telescopes revealed a spectacular solar outburst outlined against a deep space background. The storm cloud of gases extended for several thousand miles from the surface of the sun.

“There’s a lot of joy on the flight deck,” said co-pilot Air Force Col. Roy D. Bridges Jr., as he watched the image on a television monitor in the orbiting spacecraft.

Pleased With Results

Both the astronauts and scientists at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center here were noticeably relieved that the platform was operating well enough to train the telescopes on their solar targets.

After the Monday launch of Challenger, the $60-million platform initially refused to perform the fine tracking maneuvers that are required to keep the telescopes focused on astronomical objects.

Early Wednesday, engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration fed new programming for the device into computers aboard the shuttle, and the result was a dramatic improvement in performance.

“Things are getting better and better,” said mission scientist Eugene Urban at the space center here. “The next several days are going to be very exciting for us.”

Progress was also reported in several other experiments Wednesday as the shuttle settled down to its scientific business after the harrowing launch.

For the first time in shuttle history an engine failed during flight, and Challenger limped into an orbit about 40 miles lower than anticipated.

Observations Obscured

The lower altitude has interfered with some of the planned observations and late Wednesday NASA officials said that they planned once again to fire the shuttle’s orbital maneuvering rockets to raise the craft to a slightly higher orbit.

Otherwise, the solar experiments appeared to be on their way to success. The observations, made through four separate telescopes on the pointing platform, are designed to collect information on a variety of solar phenomena.

Solar storms, for example, are known to have an effect on Earth’s weather, and scientists believe a better understanding of such storms could improve weather forecasting here.

Alan H. Gabriel of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom said that the study of solar prominences also could have a profound effect on proving the “big bang” theory of the origin of the universe. The theory holds that the abundance of helium is little changed since the dawn of creation, but a precise measurement of the amount of the element on the sun has never been taken. It’s believed that the ratio of helium on the sun would apply to all stars.

Serves as Model

“What is true of the sun is true of the universe as a whole,” said Gabriel. If the study precisely determines the ratio of hydrogen and helium on the sun, said Gabriel, it will verify important elements of theories on the origin of stars and planets.

The “big bang” theory proposes that the universe began with a massive explosion and that residue from the explosion clumped together to form stars and planets, all of which continue to expand outward.

Daniel Spicer, project scientist, said that the pointing platform, though greatly improved, still had not reached the performance level NASA had sought. The platform, built for the shuttle by the European Space Agency, is designed to point so accurately that it could focus a telescope on a dime more than two miles away.

NASA considers the operation of the platform crucial because it will be the primary piece of equipment used on a mission to study Halley’s Comet in March of next year.

Later on Wednesday the crew of the Challenger slowly rotated the spacecraft around a tiny “sub-satellite” that was released by the shuttle’s mechanical arm.

Ionosphere Studied

The small satellite studied patterns in the layer of the upper atmosphere known as the ionosphere. The patterns, or waves, were created by the shuttle as it passed through a layer that is composed not of air but magnetic particles known as ions.

In addition, an X-ray telescope focused on more distant stars, the clusters of Virgo and Centaurus, and Urban said that the instrument gathered “very good information” on the radiation spewed out from those massive star fields. The goal is to map the sources of celestial X-rays.

After its experiments are complete, the Challenger is scheduled to return to Edwards Air Force Base in California on Monday.

In addition to Bridges, the shuttle crew includes pilot Air Force Col. Gordon Fullerton, NASA medical researcher F. Story Musgrave, and astronomers Loren W. Acton, John-David Bartoe, Karl Henize and Anthony England.