CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)—Discovery’s astronauts successfully pitched an ultraviolet telescope into orbit Monday after a delay caused by yet another communications problem.

It was the crew’s second satellite release in two days and another major objective of the 10-day shuttle mission.

‘‘Two days, two deploys. Couldn’t ask for more than that,’‘ Mission Control’s Jay Apt told the crew as the retrievable research satellite drifted away.

Astronaut Daniel Bursch couldn’t release the telescope from the end of Discovery’s 50-foot robot arm until ground controllers finished sending up commands.

The controllers got behind because of intermittent communications interruptions caused by radio interference, and Mission Control delayed release 1^4 hours, or one orbit. Flight director Bob Castle said a lightning strike near Mission Control in Houston added to the data-relay problem.

Sunday’s release of an experimental communications satellite just hours into the flight also was delayed by one orbit. For nearly an hour, Mission Control could not contact Discovery because of interference from the payload radio system.

NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said the two problems were unrelated.

Once the telescope satellite was free, commander Frank Culbertson Jr. carefully backed Discovery away. The 3^4-ton satellite—an ultraviolet telescope and spectrograph mounted on a platform—is to trail 35 miles behind the shuttle for about a week before being retrieved by Bursch for the trip home Sept. 22.

‘‘We are very happy with what we see,’‘ satellite mission manager Konrad Moritz said following instrument checkouts. ‘‘The spacecraft is in excellent shape.’‘

The telescope and spectrograph are to focus on cold interstellar clouds that might be breeding new stars as well as the scorching atmospheres of stars up to 10 times hotter than the sun’s.

Deploying one orbit late should result in a loss of only about 1 percent of science data, Moritz said.

The instruments are flying free of the shuttle so they can be pointed in any direction at any time, something that would have been difficult if not impossible aboard Discovery.

The approximately $80 million project is funded largely by Germany’s space agency.

Moments after the telescope was released, an IMAX camera on the platform beamed back stunning views of Discovery, cargo bay side up, against a cloud-studded blue backdrop.

‘‘It’s an incredible sight, isn’t it?’‘ Culbertson asked.

In another shot an hour later, the shuttle appeared as seven bright lights hovering above the Earth’s limb, which transformed almost magically from a glowing green into an icy blue. And in another, Discovery slowly rotated, ghostlike against the darkness of space as sunlight glinted off the craft.

The scenes will be used in an upcoming IMAX film about space.

Yet to come in orbit, besides the retrieval of the science satellite, is a six-hour spacewalk. Astronauts James Newman and Carl Walz on Thursday are to test tools to be used by another shuttle crew to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in December.

It will be NASA’s third practice spacewalk this year and the last before the crucial Hubble repair mission.