There's word today that the GLAST spacecraft described in a Sun story here is safely in orbit 350 miles above the earth and running smoothly. It launched from Cape Canaveral June 11.

The solar arrays or "wings" that will power it have begun working, the software to control its heating system has been activated and it began tracking its first stars June 16.

Now, engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt will spend the next four weeks turning on and checking out the various components on the spacecraft.

GLAST will survey the entire sky every three hours.

I hate when science writers get gee-whiz about their subjects, but this is really cool stuff, so I guess I'm doing it here: The mission is aimed at trying to decipher the who, what, where and why of gamma ray bursts, which originate in black holes, shoot out across space in little understood tubular formations and are one of the most powerful sources of energy ever discovered.

The mission's an international affair, with the lead U.S. agencies NASA and the Department of Energy, but there are important contributions from universities and partners in France, Italy, Japan and Sweden.

There's more on the mission here.