Trent J. Perrotto
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0321
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
RELEASE: 12-028
NASA'S NUSTAR SHIPS TO VANDENBERG AHEAD OF MARCH 14 LAUNCH
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR,
shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday to be mated
to its Pegasus launch vehicle. The observatory will detect X-rays
from objects ranging from our sun to giant black holes billions of
light-years away. It is scheduled to launch March 14 from an aircraft
operating out of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
"The NuSTAR mission is unique because it will be the first NASA
mission to focus X-rays in the high-energy range, creating the most
detailed images ever taken in this slice of the electromagnetic
spectrum," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
The observatory shipped from Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles,
Va., where the spacecraft and science instrument were integrated. It
is scheduled to arrive at Vandenberg on Jan. 27, where it will be
mated to the Pegasus, also built by Orbital, on Feb. 17.
The mission will be launched from the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft,
which will take off near the equator from Kwajalein Atoll in the
Pacific. NuSTAR and its Pegasus will fly from Vandenberg to Kwajalein
attached to the underside of the L-1011, and are scheduled to arrive
on March 7.
On launch day, after the airplane arrives at the planned drop site
over the ocean, the Pegaus will drop from the L-1011 and carry NuSTAR
to an orbit around Earth.
"NuSTAR is an engineering achievement, incorporating state-of-the-art
high-energy X-ray mirrors and detectors that will enable years of
astronomical discovery," said Yunjin Kim, the mission's project
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena.
NuSTAR's advanced telescope consists of two sets of 133 concentric
shells of mirrors, which were shaped from flexible-glass similar to
that found in laptop screens. Because X-rays require large focusing
distances, or focal lengths, the telescope has a lengthy 10-meter
(33-foot) mast, which will unfold a week after launch.
These and other advances in technology will enable NuSTAR to explore
the cosmic world of high-energy X-rays with much improved sensitivity
and resolution over previous missions. During its two-year primary
mission, NuSTAR will map the celestial sky in X-rays, surveying black
holes, mapping supernova remnants, and studying particle jets
travelling away from black holes near the speed of light.
NuSTAR also will probe the sun, looking for microflares theorized to
be on the surface that could explain how the sun's million-degree
corona, or atmosphere, is heated. It even will test a theory of dark
matter, the mysterious substance making up about one-quarter of our
universe, by searching the sun for evidence of a hypothesized dark
matter particle.
"NuSTAR will provide an unprecedented capability to discover and study
some of the most exotic objects in the universe, from the corpses of
exploded stars in the Milky Way to supermassive black holes residing
in the hearts of distant galaxies," said Lou Kaluzienski, NuSTAR
program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NuSTAR is a small-explorer mission managed by JPL for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences
Corporation. Its instrument was built by a consortium including
Caltech, JPL, Columbia University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Md., the Danish Technical University, the University of
California, Berkeley, and ATK-Goleta. NuSTAR will be operated by U.C.
Berkeley, with the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial
ground station located at Malindi, Kenya. NASA's Explorer Program is
managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
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