"Early Results from the Chandra Observatory"
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched early in the
morning of 1999,
July 23 by the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Shuttle launch
was only the
first step in placing NASA's latest great observatory
into orbit. After
release from the cargo bay, the Inertial Upper Stage
performed two firings
and separated from the observatory as planned. Finally,
after five firings
of Chandra's own Integral Propulsion System - the last
of which took place
15 days after the initial launch - the observatory was
placed in its highly
elliptical orbit of 140,000 km apogee and 10,000 km perigee.
After
Observatory activation, the first x-rays focussed by
the telescope were
observed on 1999, August 12. Beginning with this initial
observation one
could conclude that the telescope had survived the launch
environment and
was operating as expected. The month following the opening
of the sunshade
door was spent adjusting the focus for each set of instrument
configurations, determining the optical axis, calibrating
the star camera,
establishing the relative response functions, determining
the energy
scale(s), and performing a series of "publicity" images
before beginning
science operations. Each observation proved to be far
more revealing than
was expected. A number of preliminary results will be
presented.