Shuttle Telescopes Back in Business : Space: The problem with pointing system is fixed. Instruments are now able to find and ‘lock on’ to targets in distant sky.

Scientists who had been frustrated for two days by control problems with four telescopes aboard the space shuttle Columbia won the upper hand late Tuesday and began their historic observations of the universe.

“We’re finally there,” Jack Jones, manager of the Astro Observatory mission, said after a sensitive system aboard the shuttle that guides the telescopes was able to automatically find and “lock on” to targets in the distant sky.

“It’s a historic moment,” astronomer Jeffrey A. Hoffman, a member of Columbia’s crew, told Mission Control after the Astro telescopes, for the first time, switched automatically from one target to another. That had been an elusive goal for crewmen aboard the Columbia, who had been forced to guide the telescopes manually, a time-consuming process that often failed.

The successful maneuver was a major turning point in a program that is designed to give scientists their first prolonged look at the universe as disclosed by light that is absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere. Three of the telescopes aboard Columbia study objects in ultraviolet light, and the fourth is an X-ray telescope.

Had the pointing system failed, a mission that some scientists have been working on for more than a decade would have been in jeopardy.

“I can smile now,” mission scientist Ted Gull said late Tuesday. “We have an observatory. It’s coming alive.”

That is exactly the way it seemed for Arthur D. Code, principal investigator on the University of Wisconsin’s telescope. Code has been trying to study the universe in ultraviolet light--which is emitted by violent, hot objects--for most of his career. But Tuesday, the silver-haired scientist said he had acquired more data in a few hours with his orbiting telescope than he had during his entire career.

“We were impatient,” he said, referring to the frustration that was beginning to grip scientists here as they watched irreplaceable time slip away from them.

Several times, engineers and scientists thought they had solved their problems, only to have the telescopes drift off target. Some were clearly becoming depressed.

“It’s been a real roller coaster,” said astronomer Jeff Clayton of the University of Colorado.

Astro was not the only event on the schedule for the crew members of the Columbia. They also paused to gaze out the window and take a look at their neighbors. The Soviet space station Mir passed about 30 miles over the Columbia, and it will do so several times during the mission, a reminder of just how crowded space is becoming.

There are five men aboard the Mir, including a Japanese television reporter, and seven aboard Columbia, making a record total of 12 persons in space at the same time. None of them, however, are women.

The first day of collecting scientific data saw more of a trickle than a flood because the problems with the control system limited the use of the telescopes for most of the day. Scientists expect to hit high gear today.

The Astro observatory’s four telescopes all work in concert, so scientists are getting various types of data simultaneously on each target.

Only one of the instruments, Goddard Space Flight Center’s Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, actually takes pictures, and those will not be processed until after the shuttle lands. The other three all produce graphics that tell astronomers much about the chemical composition, temperature and even dynamics of distant celestial objects.

By putting all that data together, scientists hope to be able to say much about such things as the evolution of the universe, the existence of black holes and even the nature of invisible matter that many believe makes up more than 90% of the universe.

Scientists would like to keep Astro in orbit for months, but the mission will end Tuesday, as planned, according to top officials with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The shuttle is to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 8:47 p.m. Tuesday.

The Columbia is commanded by Vance D. Brand. The other members of the crew are Guy S. Gardner, the pilot, John M. Lounge, Robert A. R. (Bob) Parker, Samuel T. Durrance and Ronald A. Parise.