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Hard X-ray telescope idea up for final NASA review CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NEWS RELEASE Posted: February 1, 2005 If all goes well with a technical study approved by NASA for this year, an innovative telescope should be orbiting Earth by the end of the decade and taking the first focused high-energy X-ray pictures of matter falling into black holes and shooting out of exploding stars. Not only will the telescope be 1,000 times more capable of finding new black holes than anything previously launched into space, but it will also give us an unprecedented look at the origins of the heavy elements we're all made of. Named the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array--or NuSTAR, for short--the project has just been pegged by NASA for detailed study in the competitive Small Explorer Program (SMEX), which seeks out new technologies and new proposals for space missions that can be launched at low cost. NASA announced earlier this week that an unrelated mission called the Interstellar Boundary Explorer will be launched by 2008, and that NuSTAR will be given an up-or-down decision by next year for launch in 2009. According to California Institute of Technology astrophysicist Fiona Harrison, the principal investigator of the NuSTAR project, an April high-altitude balloon flight in New Mexico should help to demonstrate whether the advanced sensors invented and built at Caltech are ready for space. The balloon phase of the project sports the intuitive acronym HEFT (for High-Energy Focusing Telescope), and will mark the first time that focused pictures at "hard X-ray" wavelengths will have been returned from high altitudes. In fact, the HEFT data from the balloon is expected to be superior to any data returned so far from satellites at high X-ray energies. NuSTAR will be much better than the balloon experiment, Harrison explains, because it's necessary to get above Earth's atmosphere for extended periods to get a good view of the X-ray sky. NuSTAR will orbit Earth at an altitude of about 300 miles or so for at least three years. The reason that the new technology will be superior to that employed by existing X-ray satellites for certain observations is that high-energy, or hard, X rays, tend to penetrate the gas and dust of galaxies much better than the soft X rays observed by NuSTAR's forerunners. Thus, NuSTAR will get the first focused hard X-ray images for three basic science goals:
"With this mission, we'll open the hard X-ray frontier and look at things never seen before," says Harrison, who is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Caltech. In addition to Caltech, the other participating organizations and universities are the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (managed by Caltech for NASA), Columbia University, the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sonoma State University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the Danish Space Research Institute. NuSTAR's mast will be built by ABLE Engineering and the spacecraft will be built by General Dynamics Spectrum Astro. JPL handles project management, the metrology system, and the extensible mast, and is involved in the mission's science. The mast is based on a previous JPL mission, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The selected proposals were among 29 SMEX and eight mission-of-opportunity proposals submitted to NASA in May 2003. They were in response to an Explorer Program Announcement of Opportunity issued in February 2003. NASA selected six proposals in November 2003 for detailed feasibility studies. The Explorer Program is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space for physics and astronomy missions with small to mid-sized spacecraft. NASA has successfully launched six SMEX missions since 1992. The missions include the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, launched in February 2002, and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, launched in April 2003 and led by Caltech physics professor Chris Martin. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorer Program for the Science Mission Directorate. |
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Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson go under water in the Neutral Bouyancy Lab's gigantic pool to practice spacewalk activities for the upcoming STS-114 return-to-flight space shuttle mission. (3min 45sec file)
The STS-114 return-to-flight space shuttle crew visits Kennedy Space Center to inspect Discovery and the new sensor boom that will look for orbiter launch damage. (2min 22sec file)
NASA pays tribute to those lost while furthering the cause of exploration, including the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews, during this Day of Remembrance memorial from agency headquarters on Jan. 27. (38min 58sec file)
The Orbiter Boom Sensor System is loaded into space shuttle Discovery's payload bay. The arm will be used to inspect the shuttle for damage following the return-to-flight launch. (4min 18sec file)
The Expedition 10 conducts a successful spacewalk outside the International Space Station to mount a German robotic arm and Russian science package to the Zvezda service module's exterior. (5min 07sec file)
One week after the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's moon Titan, scientists hold a news conference to announce additional results and describe more pictures from the mission. (69min 02sec file)
The upcoming spacewalk by the International Space Station's Expedition 10 crew is previewed by NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center on Jan. 21. (25min 04sec file)
A Boeing Delta 2 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral carrying NASA's comet-smashing probe called Deep Impact. This extended clip follows the mission through second stage ignition and jettison of the rocket's nose cone. (5min 37sec file)
A camera located at Cape Canaveral's Press Site 1 location offers this view of the Delta rocket's ascent. (1min 24sec file)