Astronauts photograph Halley’s Comet

Press, 14 January 1986, Page 6

Astronauts photograph Halley’s Comet

NZPA-Reuter Cape Canaveral Astronauts aboard the United States space shuttle Columbia were to begin taking photographs of Halley’s Comet today.

After a smooth lift-off yesterday on a long-delayed, five-day mission, the sevenman crew sent a SUSSO million ($98.5 million) satellite spinning smoothly into orbit. Columbia soared into the Florida sunrise after being delayed a record seven times in three weeks by a series of mechanical and weather problems — it had become known as “mission

impossible.” On board Columbia is a crew of seven, including a United States Congressman, Mr Bill Nelson, and the first Hispanic-American astronaut. Several hours after liftoff, an astronaut, George Nelson, ejected from Columbia’s cargo bay a 2 tonne communications satellite. A satellite booster rocket was then fired, propelling it on a path to its duty station 35,600 km above the equator. Congressman Nelson, aged 43, a Florida Democrat and chairman of the House subcommittee which oversees the space agency’s

budget, is the second congressman to travel aboard a shuttle. Senator Jake Garn, a Utah Republican, flew on spaceship Discovery for six days last April. Nelson is to serve as a human guinea pig in a study of space motion sickness, which has afflicted about half of all space travellers. Columbia, the oldest of the four United States space shuttles, is making its first space mission in two years after undergoing an extensive overhaul. Columbia is scheduled to land on January 17 on a 4.Bkm runway at Kennedy Space Centre, Houston.