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H. Tananbaum (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
The third of NASA's four Great Observatories, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, was successfully launched aboard the Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. Chandra was boosted to its highly elliptical, 64-hr orbit using an Inertial Upper Stage and an internal propulsion system. Following successful activation of all spacecraft, telescope, and science instrument systems, Chandra has been observing all types of astronomical objects for nearly two years. This talk will provide a brief overview of the Observatory and will present selected science highlights from the high spatial resolution X-ray images and high resolution X-ray spectra obtained to date. The author acknowledges support umder NASA Contract NAS8-39073.