Releasing Compton

Named for Nobel laureate physicist Arthur Holly Compton , the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) Satellite was launched in April of 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis . CGRO's mission is to explore the Universe at gamma-ray energies. The massive space based observatory is seen here held upright in the shuttle payload bay behind smiling astronaut Jerry Ross . Ross and his colleague Jay Apt have just finished a successful, unplanned spacewalk to free a jammed antenna prior to releasing CGRO into orbit. CGRO has been operating successfully since, providing the first all-sky survey at gamma-ray energies along with exciting new observations of the sun , quasars , pulsars , supernova , black holes , and gamma-ray bursts .