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(3 Jun 2000) English/Nat XFA It's a satellite many of us didn't even know existed, but to NASA, the information uncovered by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory is priceless. Despite this, NASA is set to send its successful mission to certain death on Sunday the 4th of June, in the name of public safety. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in April 1991. For nine years, Compton has hovered in orbit, reliably scanning the galaxy for gamma rays. Gamma rays are a powerful, yet invisible form of energy which can travel vast distances in space at the speed of light without being changed. Astronomers believe these rays may hold clues to many things, including the processes involved in the creation of the elements. SOUNDBITE: (English) “It tells us about things in the Cosmos where the most energetic things are going on: quasars, black holes, pulsars, high energy cosmic that tend to be of high energy and high temperature.“ SUPER CAPTION: Dr Alan Bunner, NASA Science Programme Director During its nine years in space, Compton had tremendous successes. In 1997, it thrilled scientists when it detected a blast of gamma rays that was 12 billion years old. But, the observatory ran into problems last year, when one of the spacecraft's controlling devices - called a gyroscope - failed. The craft needs two gyroscopes to operate, so the failure left the satellite with no backup, and NASA a little nervous. SOUNDBITE: (English) “The gyroscopes are one of the devices that help keep the spacecraft stabilised. And that left us just one step away from not being able to do a controlled re-entry, and so we realised at that point that we had to scurry and find a way to safely and reliably bring GRO to ground.“ SUPER CAPTION: Dr Alan Bunner, NASA Science Programme Director Unlike most satellites, Compton is too large to burn up entirely in the atmosphere. More than six tons of metal debris is expected to fall to the Earth's surface, ranging in size from tiny fragments to several hundred pounds. To ensure public safety, NASA said it had no choice but to control the satellite's de-orbit, and make sure it crashes into an area void of human life. SOUNDBITE:(English) “If we were to do nothing, if we had done nothing over the past several months, then we could face an uncontrolled re-entry, which means the spacecraft would begin to enter the atmosphere in a few years, it would begin to tumble as it gets buffeted by the upper-atmosphere, and then it would break apart, and where those pieces fell, nobody knows, nobody could say, and it could fall, in principle, on populated areas. That's the situation we have to avoid.“ SUPER CAPTION: Dr. Alan Bunner, NASA Science Programme Director Debris from the Compton Observatory is expected to fall in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean, approximately 25-hundred (2500) miles (approximately 1550 kilometres) southeast of Hawaii, and thousands of miles away from any land or life. NASA says despite the death of one of its most successful satellites, Compton's task was too important to let die. Doctor Bunner says there are at least four satellites preparing to be launched over the next few years that will pick up where the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory left off. Find out more about AP Archive: Twitter: Facebook: Instagram: You can license this story through AP Archive:
