IMAGE 1100_99\115.Lbm,The crew patch for the STS-37 mission features the Compton gamma- ray observatory (GRO). The shuttle orbiter and the GRO are connected by a stylized gamma (Greek letter).
IMAGE 1100_99\116.Lbm,Kennedy Space Center technicians remove the GRO from its container early in February 1990. Weighing in at some 15 tonnes, it will be the heaviest satellite carried aboard the shuttle. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\117.Lbm,Carrying the GRO, Atlantis begins its journey into space on April 5, 1991. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\118.Lbm,On reaching orbit, Atlantis's payload bay doors begin to open. Sitting in the payload bay is the massive GRO, one of NASA's so- called great observatories. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\119.Lbm,With the desert region of the Middle East far below, Atlantis's RMS arm lifts the GRO out of the payload bay. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\120.Lbm,Here the GRO is pictured over the Gulf of California. The Salton Sea and the winding Colorado River are in the centre of the frame. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\121.Lbm,Jerome Apt is pictured on Atlantis's port side during a contingency EVA in which he and Jerry Ross managed to extend the GRO's high-gain antenna, which refused to deploy automatically. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\123.Lbm,On a second, planned EVA on STS-37, Jerry Ross prepares to move along a beam in the payload bay with the help of a mechanical cart (CETA, the crew and equipment translation aid).
IMAGE 1100_99\124.Lbm,Jerry Ross attached a safety tether to a guide wire on Atlantis's port side during the second EVA on STS-37.
IMAGE 1100_99\125.Lbm,Linda Godwin demonstrates how easy it is to balance fellow astronaut Jerry Ross in the peculiar state of weightlessness. (STS-37)
IMAGE 1100_99\126.Lbm,The STS-37 astronauts pose for the traditional in-flight portrait. From left to right, they are Jerry Ross, Steven Nagel, Linda Godwin, Kenneth Cameron and Jerome Apt.
