Space: Looking and Listening in the Heavens

Columbia opens a new satellite era by lofting two pay loads into earth orbit

Traveling high over the Pacific Ocean on its sixth swing around the earth last week, the space shuttle Columbia once again made history. Firing its small thrusters, it rolled and turned so that its big cargo bay faced in the direction of flight. Clamshell-shaped sun covers automatically opened, and the cylindrical parcel underneath them was set spinning (at precisely 52 r.p.m.). With the press of a button, Astronaut Bill Lenoir, 43, fired explosive bolts, releasing the spring-loaded clamps holding the parcel. Out it popped, like some extraterrestrial jack-in-the-box. Forty-five minutes later, after Columbia had pulled about 20 miles away and cautiously turned up its tile-covered belly to protect itself from the blast, a rocket ignited and sent the whirling object hurtling out into space toward a permanent parking spot far above the equator. Said one of Columbia's crewmen: "We delivered. We got SBS off on time."

For the first time in the annals of space, a piloted ship had succeeded in launching an earth satellite. The trail-blazing cargo, formally known as SBS-3, was the third in a series of commercial communications satellites owned by Satellite Business Systems, a partnership of IBM, Comsat General and Aetna Life & Casualty. It was one of two look-alike satellites carried aloft by Columbia on its fifth voyage. The other, called Anik C-3 and owned by Telesat Canada, which runs that country's satellite communications, was launched with equal ease a day later. Both satellites are among the most advanced examples of electronic wizardry in orbit. About 21 ft. long, 7 ft. wide and weighing 1,300 lbs. apiece, excluding their boosters, they will provide thousands of new channels for relaying information through space, from voice communications to television, from business data to "talk" between computers.

Columbia's own flight last Thursday morning began just as flawlessly, lifting off about half a second early. Carrying a four-man crew, double the number on previous missions, the spacecraft remained visible for more than 3 min. as it rose on its pillars of fire into a cloudless sky over Cape Canaveral, undeterred by 90-m.p.h. winds. On the last mission, in July, Columbia's big strap-on solid-fuel booster rockets sank into the sea. This time, after separating from their mother ship, they drifted gently to earth under their large parachutes and stayed afloat for later recovery. As the shuttle cruised 184 miles above the earth, President Reagan sent up his greetings. Commented Columbia's commander, Vance Brand, 51, a veteran of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz linkup: "It's a beautiful world that we're over." Replied Reagan: "We're trying to figure out how to keep the world as beautiful as it is you looking at it from up there."