Jan 25, 2012

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

For more information, visit:

http://www nasa gov/nustar

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