GODWIN HEADS UP SCIENCE PROJECTS

It's up at 1:05 a.m. and to bed at 5:05 p.m. each day for Oak Ridge astronaut Linda Godwin.

Godwin serves as payload commander aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, which blasted into space Saturday.

As payload commander, Godwin is the chief person responsible for the science taking place on board the shuttle, said NASA spokesman Barbara Schwartz said Saturday afternoon.

"She has been working on this mission longer than anyone else on the flight," Schwartz said. "She has been coordinating all the training requirements to bring crew up to speed and make them knowledgeable."

While NASA experienced trouble with one of two radar mapping instruments aboard Endeavour, the second worked fine.

"They just had their first data take over Raco, Mich.," said Schwartz at about 2 p.m.

The equipment, as a whole, is supposed to be the most advanced space radar ever built for civilian use. The main purpose of the 10-day mission is to see how well the radar works.

Schwartz said: "This mission very much the same mission throughout. They will be doing the radar mapping at different sites all over the world with a lot of universities participating."

While all that mapping is going on, a host of other experiments are also in the works.

Today, for example, Godwin will oversee a series of "get-away specials," smaller experiments placed on the shuttle by various universities, the NASA spokesman said.

Astronauts will also study water storage, ocean dynamics, tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, and soil erosion.