Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

Alumnus is Aboard Space Shuttle

Alumnus Rides Space Shuttle 

Aboard the Atlantis space shuttle that carried NASA's Gamma Ray 
Observatory (GRO) into space last week was mission specialist astronaut 
Dr. Jerome Apt III, a graduate of MIT. Dr. Apt received his PhD in 
physics from MIT in 1976.

The shuttle mission is the 39th and comes near the 10th anniversary of 
the first shuttle launch, April 12, 1981. The 17-ton Gamma Ray 
Observatory that was deployed from Atlantis will be the second in a 
series of four ÒGreat ObservatoriesÓ in space. The first was the Hubble 
Space Telescope, which was launched last year.

The GRO will open an entirely new window on the cosmos, allowing 
scientists to observe the universe in the high-energy gamma-ray 
spectrum. Gamma rays are like X rays, but are thousands to millions of 
times shorter in wavelength and correspondingly higher in energy. The 
AXAF, or Advanced X Ray Astrophysical Facility, in which MIT researchers 
have played a leading role (see accompanying story), will be the next 
Great Observatory to be launchedÑin 1998. 

Joining Dr. Apt aboard the Atlantis were Air Force Col. Steven R. Nagle 
and Lieut. Col. Jerry L. Ross, Marine Corps Lieut. Col. Kenneth D. 
Cameron, and physicist Dr. Linda M. Godwin.

On Monday, April 8,  Dr. Apt and Col. Ross made a Òspace walkÓ outside 
the Atlantis cabin to perform work in the open shuttle cargo bay that 
was aimed at evaluating how astronauts will be able to assemble and 
repair the planned space station Freedom later in the decade. Earlier in 
the flight, the pair made an unscheduled space walk outside the cabin to 
release a balky communications antenna on the Gamma Ray Observatory.

Dr. Apt was born in Springfield, Mass., in 1949. Before entering MIT, he 
was an undergraduate at Harvard University and received his BA degree 
there. Dr. Apt's MIT PhD thesis was titled, ÒVelocity Dependence of 
Excitation Transfer in Collisions of Laser-Excited AtomsÓ; his thesis 
supervisor was Professor David E. Pritchard.