CAPE CANAVERAL, Dec 4: A spacewalking US astronaut tossed out a robotic camera yesterday and then leaned back and watched with delight as the ball soared 40 feet above space shuttle Columbia on its own. The white sphere about the size of a beach ball flitted above and about space shuttle Columbia's open cargo bay for more than an hour in the first test of its kind.

All the while, it beamed down dizzying video views of the shuttle from nose to tail back to nose, upside down and rightside up. As soon as spacewalker Winston Scott got his gloved hands back on the roaming eye, its remote-control operator announced ``a home run.''

``I think we've got a real winner here,'' pilot Steven Lindsey reported from the cockpit. The debut of the US space agency NASA's robotic camera, known as Aercam Sprint, was a warm-up for the soon-to-be-built international space station. The free-flying camera worth $3 million, was supposed to be released during a spacewalk last week. Scott and his Japanese spacewalking partner, Takao Doi, had to skip the experiment, however, in order to catch a runaway science satellite.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.