SPACEPHOTOS

(06/07/1999) -- This closeup of Space Shuttle Columbia on Launch Pad 39B shows the Rotating Service Structure, at left, which will be moved into place on Tuesday, June 8. Columbia was rolled out June 7, less than two weeks after the liftoff of Discovery on mission STS-96, in preparation for the launch of STS-93. The mission payload is the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world's most powerful X-ray telescope, which will allow scientists from around the world to see previously invisible black holes and high-temperature gas clouds, giving the observatory the potential to rewrite the books on the structure and evolution of our universe. Columbia (OV-102) is the first of NASA's orbiter fleet, delivered to Kennedy Space Center in March 1979. Columbia initiated the Space Shuttle flight program at KSC when it lifted off Launch Pad 39A on April 12, 1981