Astronauts Deploy Craft for Studying Sun’s Corona : Space: Spartan’s two telescopes will try to find out how solar wind, which disrupts navigational and communications systems on Earth, is generated.
Discovery’s astronauts heaved a glistening, gold-colored spacecraft into orbit Sunday for two days of solar study.
“Sure was pretty to see that thing go,” Commander Kenneth Cameron said.
The $6-million reusable spacecraft, about the size of a large air conditioner, should be retrieved by the crew Tuesday. Called Spartan, it contains two telescopes for observing the sun’s blazing halo, or corona.
Spartan is autonomous--the five astronauts and ground crew have no control over the craft while it’s free of Discovery. It must be returned to Earth so scientists can analyze the data it records.
“We have no idea at this point that it’s working properly, although we expect it to perform as planned,” Spartan mission manager Jack Pownell said from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
A Spartan spacecraft to study Halley’s Comet was aboard Challenger in January, 1986, when the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. The first Spartan, carrying an X-ray telescope, flew aboard Discovery in 1985.
Everything went well during Sunday’s deployment.
Astronaut Ellen Ochoa used the shuttle’s 50-foot robot arm to lift the 2,800-pound spacecraft from the cargo bay. She released the craft as Discovery sped over Greece on day four of an eight-day atmospheric research mission.
Cameron and pilot Stephen Oswald steered away from Spartan and increased the distance between the spacecraft by nine miles an orbit. After reaching a maximum distance of about 200 miles, the crew was to close back in for a Tuesday retrieval.
Spartan’s telescopes are designed to find out how solar wind is generated in the sun’s corona.
Blasting by Earth at nearly 1 million m.p.h., this stream of electrons, protons and heavy ions often disrupts navigation, communications and electrical systems.
Researchers also want to know how the corona heats up to 1 million degrees.
After releasing Spartan, Discovery’s astronauts launched into their own solar observations. The shuttle holds four instruments to measure solar energy and three to study the atmosphere, in particular the protective ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere.
