Compton Gamma Ray Observatory Launch Date: April 05, 1991
Mission Project Home Page -
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/cgro/cossc/ The Compton Gamma
Ray Observatory was the second of NASA's Great Observatories.
Compton, at 17 tons, was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever
flown at the time of its launch on April 5, 1991 aboard the
space shuttle Atlantis. Compton was safely deorbited and re-
entered the Earth's atmosphere on June 4, 2000. The Compton
Gamma Ray Observatory (GGRO) was a sophisticated satellite
observatory dedicated to observing the high-energy Universe. It
was the second in NASA's program of orbiting "Great
Observatories", following the Hubble Space Telescope. While
Hubble's instruments operate at visible and ultraviolet
wavelengths, Compton carried a collection of four instruments
which together detected an unprecedented broad range of high-
energy radiation called gamma rays. These instruments are the
Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), the Oriented
Scintillation Spectrometer Expe