* Astronomy

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RE: NuSTAR mission

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NASA's NuSTAR Gearing up for Launch

Final pre-launch preparations are underway for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The mission, which will use X-ray vision to hunt for hidden black holes, is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 13 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The observatory will launch from the belly of Orbital Sciences Corporation's L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft aboard the company's Pegasus rocket.
Technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California are busy installing the rocket's fairing, or nose cone, around the observatory. A flight computer software evaluation is also nearing completion and should be finished before the Flight Readiness Review, which is scheduled for June 1. A successful launch simulation of the Orbital Sciences' Pegasus XL rocket was conducted last week.
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NASA's NuSTAR mission will launch into a low-Earth, near-equator orbit on a Pegasus XL rocket from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands

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Launch of NASA's NuSTAR Mission Postponed

The planned launch of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has been postponed after a March 15 launch status meeting. The launch will be rescheduled to allow additional time to confirm the flight software used by the launch vehicle's flight computer will issue commands to the rocket as intended.
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NASA to Hold Media Briefing About Upcoming NuSTAR Mission

NASA will hold a media briefing at 17:00 UT on Tuesday, March 13, to discuss the upcoming launch of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). The mission will use advanced optics and detectors, allowing astronomers to observe the high-energy X-ray sky with much greater sensitivity and clarity than any mission flown to-date. The televised briefing will take place at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
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NASA's NuSTAR Ships to Vandenberg for March 14 Launch

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.
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NuSTAR Telescope

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RE: NuSTAR mission

Blobrana · L

NASA approves X-ray Telescope Mission
US space agency NASA recently confirmed that the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission will be launched in August 2011. The official confirmation follows two years of detailed design and reviews that have enabled NASA to determine that the NuSTAR team is ready to build the flight hardware.

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NASA announced today (Friday, Sept. 21) its intent to restart a small scientific satellite mission it had cancelled in 2006 because of funding pressures created in part by the shift in the agency's focus to manned missions to the moon and Mars.
Now scheduled for launch in 2011, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission consists of an X-ray telescope that focuses high-energy X-rays - called "hard" X-rays - to image the environments of massive black holes at the cores of galaxies. It will be the first focusing hard X-ray telescope in orbit, and will complement the soft X-ray observations of the orbiting Chandra X-ray observatory, which was launched in 1999.

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