Tension High As Satellite Is Launched

"Ten, nine, eight, seven .... "

A tense silence filled Room 306-B at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (HSCFA) early yesterday morning as about 50 astronomers, students and friends listened to the final seconds of countdown before the launch of a satellite designed to probe the most distant recesses of the universe.

"... Six, five, four, three ..."

The High Energy Astrophysical Observatory-2 (HEAO-2, dubbed the "Einstein Observatory" by project officials), primarily designed and controlled by HSCFA astronomers, should provide scientists with the first detailed X-ray photographs of various cosmic radiation sources, including pulsars, quasars, supernovae, black holes and clusters of galaxies. In space, HEAO-2's X-ray telescope can operate with a thousand times more sensitivity than similar earthbound instruments.

"... Two, one, zero ... lift-off we have a lift-off ..."

At 12:24 a.m. yesterday, an Atlas-Centaur rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral and sent HEAO-2 into an orbit that mission scientists called "perfect ... right on the money."

When, about half an hour after launch, HEAO-2 successfully deployed its power-supplying solar panels and separated from its boosters, those listening at HSCFA burst into applause and celebrated with quiche, Chablis and pretzels, as a champagne cork popped across the room.

"Everything went just as perfectly as it could go," Leon P. VanSpeybroeck, associate of the Harvard College Observatory who designed the X-ray telescope aboard HEAO-2, said yesterday from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where he monitored the launch. Along with HSCFA, groups at Goddard, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are co-sponsoring the mission.

If all goes according to schedule, the $90-million satellite will begin sending back X-ray pictures later this week.