CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The new shuttle Discovery streaked into orbit like a veteran today, carrying a crew of six on an oft-delayed mission to get the space program back on track and earn a record $34 million by launching three satellites.
It took four tries over 10 weeks, but America's third space freighter finally got off the ground at 8:42 a.m. EDT, after a seven-minute delay caused by two unidentified airplanes in the safety zone around the spaceport.
Discovery, carrying a record 24 tons of cargo, accelerated toward space atop a now-familiar column of fire and smoke. The white geyser-like plume was visible in the clear Florida sky as far away as Tampa, 130 miles to the west.
Hinging on a successful flight during the next six days were NASA's plan to conduct a flight a month for the rest of this year and the shuttle's reputation as a reliable way to haul satellites into orbit.
Astronauts Henry Hartsfield, Michael Coats, Richard Mullane, Judy Resnik, Steven Hawley and Charles Walker are scheduled to circle Earth 97 times and glide to a landing Wednesday at Edwards Air Force Base in the Southern California desert.
'I can assure you the launch team is ecstatic,' said launch director Robert Sieck. 'The only way you get over the disappointment of a scrub and abort ... is to follow with a successful launch.'
President Reagan, speaking at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., saluted the shuttle crew and said America's space program will transform 'the great black night of space into a bright new world of opportunities.'
A key milestone was passed an hour and a half after launch when the astronauts opened the doors to the ship's 60-foot payload bay. This meant the ship's radiators were exposed to space and Discovery could remain in orbit.
Four hours after launch, Ms. Resnik -- the second American woman in space -- turned on the ship's brand new mechanical arm and used a television camera mounted on its end to scan the spacecraft.
'The arm works great,' she said.
There was one problem early in the flight. One of the ship's computer display screens went blank. This was a nuisance, but not a serious difficulty for the crew.
Before launch, Hartsfield thanked ground crewmen for their perseverance in getting Discovery ready for launch. But the veteran spaceflier and his crew were unusually quiet during the first hours of their flight 184 miles high.
The astronauts' revised mission, costing NASA an estimated $150 million, combines key objectives of Discovery's abortive June 26th launch with what was to be a second mission this week.
The new flight plan called for Hawley to put out the first of Discovery's three communications stations eight hours after blastoff. The second is to be launched Friday and the third Saturday.
The first satellite is SBS 4, a 2,500-pound spacecraft owned by Satellite Business Systems and insured for $100 million. It is equipped to transmit television directly to small rooftop antennas and expand the company's long-distance telephone services.
It and the American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s Telstar 3 to be launched Friday use rocket motors with nozzles of the type that failed twice in February, leaving two similar satellites in useless orbits. AT&T and SBS officials expressed confidence that new X-ray techniques have confirmed the nozzles on the new satellites are good.
The third satellite, a Hughes Aircraft Co. Syncom leased to the Navy, uses a different type rocket to get from the low orbit of the shuttle to the 22,300-mile-high orbit that enables the satellite to match Earth's rotation and remain over one area of the globe.
The three companies are paying NASA a total of $34 million for the shuttle's launch services. That is the best payoff yet from a single mission.
Discovery's two-in-one mission is particularly important to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Shuttle manager Glynn Lunney said a successful flight will put the shuttle program back on schedule. Challenger makes the next flight Oct. 1, Discovery goes up again Nov. 2 to retrieveat least one of the satellites stranded by the earlier rocket trouble and Challenger is set for launch Dec. 8 on a secret military mission.
Discovery's maiden flight, delayed twice in June because of a computer breakdown and an engine problem, had been scheduled to begin Wednesday but was delayed 24 hours to give engineers more time to test a workaround 'patch' to a computer programming error.
In addition to the three satellites, Discovery carries the 102-foot solar sail that was aboard in June. It is an experimental array of solar cells to convert sunshine to electricity for possible use on future space stations.
Also aboard Discovery is a refrigerator-sized machine that Walker will use to produce large amounts of a secret hormone for human testing next year. Walker works for the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Corp., and is the first commercially sponsored person assigned to a space flight.
