Endeavour Crew Manually Aims Balky Telescopes

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The space shuttle Endeavour’s astronauts had trouble pointing the ultraviolet telescopes aboard the orbiter Friday, just two days into their two-week astronomy mission.

“Boy, the (pointing system) is drifting all over the place,” astronaut Ronald Parise grumbled.

Parise and Samuel Durrance, both astrophysicists, had to manually point one of the three telescopes, which are supposed to lock automatically on their targets via computer. The two scientists had to do the same thing in 1990 on the first, problem-plagued flight of the telescopes, which are called Astro.

The astronauts had to skip some stars Friday because of the pointing problem.

But Charles Meegan, a NASA scientist on the ground, said there will be plenty of time to go back and focus on the lost targets if the trouble is resolved; the 15 1/2-day mission is the longest shuttle flight planned by NASA.

Among the more than 600 possible targets are galaxies, quasars, the moon, Jupiter and Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. Astronomers hope to observe a volcanic eruption on Io today.

As of Friday afternoon, the telescopes had focused--more or less--on several stars, as well as a remnant of an exploded star 1,500 light-years away.

NASA spent $45 million to improve the pointing system and the telescopes after their first flight. The telescopes cost $150 million in 1990.