This week in 1991, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory was deployed, above, by the Remote Manipulator System arm aboard space shuttle Atlantis during STS-37. For nearly nine years, the GRO Burst and Transient Source Experiment — designed and built by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center — kept an unblinking watch on the universe to alert scientists to the invisible, mysterious gamma-ray bursts that had puzzled them for decades. The gamma-ray instrument was one of four major science instruments aboard the Compton. Thirty-seven universities, observatories and NASA centers in 19 states, and 11 more institutions in Europe and Russia, participated in the BATSE science program. The GRO reentered Earth’s atmosphere and ended its successful mission in June 2000. The NASA History Program documents and preserves NASA’s remarkable history through a variety of products — photos, press kits, press releases, mission transcripts and administrators’ speeches. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the History Program’s Web page.
Image credit: NASA