Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Astronauts Release Gigantic Satellite
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
The space shuttle Discovery’s crew released the largest environmental research satellite ever carried into space, and the observatory drifted off on a mission to study Earth’s ozone layer. Astronaut Mark Brown freed the 14,500-pound, copper-colored satellite from the end of the shuttle’s robot arm shortly after 9 p.m. PDT. The release, which was delayed by about an hour by a communications problem, capped hours of intensive work by the astronauts and NASA ground controllers at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
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