Shuttle Finally Reaches Orbit
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — After an unprecedented nine delays, space shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit Sunday night to put the Hubble Space Telescope back in working order.
It was NASA’s last chance this year to send the shuttle and seven astronauts to Hubble’s rescue. One more postponement would have bumped the flight into January.
Everything finally came together, and Discovery soared at 7:50 p.m. EST, lighting up the sky for miles around. It was a fine evening for a launch. Bad weather had forced delays the last two days.
The shuttle should catch up with the $3-billion telescope, which has been out of service for more than a month, on Tuesday. The astronauts will install six gyroscopes to steady the telescope for precision pointing, and also put in a computer, data recorder, radio transmitter and other equipment.
The mission originally was scheduled for October, but it racked up the most launch delays in 18 1/2 years of shuttle flight, according to NASA statistics.
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