J.D. Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Nuclear
Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) launched into the morning skies over the
central Pacific Ocean at noon EDT (9 a.m. PDT) Wednesday, beginning its mission
to unveil secrets of buried black holes and other exotic objects.
"We all eagerly await the launch of
this novel X-ray observatory," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics
Division Director. "With its unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution
to the previously poorly explored hard X-ray region of the electromagnetic
spectrum, NuSTAR will open a new window on the universe and will provide
complementary data to NASA's larger missions including Fermi, Chandra, Hubble
and Spitzer."
NuSTAR will use a unique set of eyes to
see the highest energy X-ray light from the cosmos. The observatory can see
through gas and dust to reveal black holes lurking in our Milky Way galaxy, as
well as those hidden in the hearts of faraway galaxies.
"NuSTAR will help us find the most
elusive and most energetic black holes, to help us understand the structure of
the universe," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator
at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The observatory began its journey aboard
the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft, operated by Orbital Sciences
Corporation, Dulles, Va. NuSTAR was perched atop Orbital's Pegasus XL rocket,
both of which were strapped to the belly of the Stargazer plane. The plane left
Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean one hour before launch. At
12:00:35 p.m. EDT (9:00:35 a.m. PDT), the rocket dropped, free-falling for five
seconds before firing its first-stage motor.
About 13 minutes after the rocket
dropped, NuSTAR separated from the rocket, reaching its final low Earth orbit.
The first signal from the spacecraft was received at 12:14 p.m. EDT (9:14 a.m.
PDT) through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System.
"NuSTAR spread its solar panels to
charge the spacecraft battery and then reported back to Earth of its good
health," said Yunjin Kim, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We are checking out the
spacecraft now and are excited to tune into the high-energy X-ray sky."
The mission's unique telescope design
includes a 33-foot (10-meter) mast, which was folded up in a small canister
during launch. In about seven days, engineers will command the mast to extend,
enabling the telescope to focus properly. About 23 days later, science
operations are scheduled to begin.
In addition to black holes and their
powerful jets, NuSTAR will study a host of high-energy objects in our universe,
including the remains of exploded stars; compact, dead stars; and clusters of
galaxies. The mission's observations, in coordination with other telescopes
such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which detects lower-energy X-rays,
will help solve fundamental cosmic mysteries. NuSTAR also will study our sun's
fiery atmosphere, looking for clues as to how it is heated.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led
by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and managed by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation,
Dulles, Va. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL;
the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University, New York; NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in
Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.; and ATK
Aerospace Systems, Goleta, Calif. NuSTAR will be operated by UC Berkeley, with
the Italian Space Agency providing its equatorial ground station located at
Malindi, Kenya. The mission's outreach program is based at Sonoma State
University, Rohnert Park, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard.
JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
Launch management and government
oversight for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services
Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
For more information about NuSTAR, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/nustar.
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