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$14.2-Million award from National Science Foundation for giant telescope LARGE SYNOPTIC SURVEY TELESCOPE CORP. NEWS RELEASE Posted: September 5, 2005 The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) has received the first year of a four-year, $14.2 million award from the National Science Foundation to design and develop a world-class, 8.4-meter telescope scheduled for completion in 2012. This award will allow engineers and scientists to complete design work already underway so that the LSST can begin construction in 2009. This unique system for surveying the heavens is made possible by advances in several technologies including:
The LSST will image an area of the sky roughly fifty times that of the full moon every 15 seconds, opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid time scales - supernovae explosions which can be seen halfway across the universe, nearby asteroids which might potentially strike Earth, and faint objects in the outer solar system, far beyond Pluto. Using the light-bending gravity of dark matter, the LSST will chart the history of the expansion of the universe and probe the mysterious nature of dark energy. The LSST data will be "open" to the public and scientists around the world - anyone with a web browser will be able to access the images and other data produced by the LSST. "The LSST is a public-private partnership and will offer a 'New Sky' available to everyone," said LSST Director J. Anthony Tyson of the University of California, avis. "Curious minds of all ages will be able to ask new questions of the LSST's public database and zoom into a color movie of the deep universe." The LSST Corporation awarded a $2.3 million contract to the University of Arizona Steward Observatory Mirror Lab in January, 2005, to purchase the glass and begin engineering work for the LSST's 8.4-meter diameter main mirror. Although the final site for the LSST has not been decided, the telescope will be placed in one of three candidate locations -- Las Campanas, Chile; Cerro Pachon, Chile; or San Pedro Martir, Baja California, Mexico. The LSST has been identified as a national scientific priority in reports by several National Academy of Sciences and federal agency advisory committees. This judgment is based upon the LSST's ability to address some of the most pressing open questions in astronomy and fundamental physics, while driving advances in data-intensive science and computing. The National Academy of Sciences "Quarks-to-Cosmos" report recommended the LSST as an incisive probe of the nature of dark energy. The LSST will open a new frontier in addressing time variable phenomena in astronomy, according to a May 2000 academy report "Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium." In 2003, the University of Arizona, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Research Corporation, and the University of Washington, formed the LSST Corporation, a non-profit 501(c)3 Arizona corporation, with headquarters in Tucson, AZ. Membership has expanded to include Brookhaven National Laboratory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, University of California at Davis, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. |
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The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has reached the summit of Husband Hill, returning a spectacular panorama from the hilltop in the vast Gusev Crater. Scientists held a news conference Sept. 1 to reveal the panorama and give an update on the twin rover mission.
To gain a new perspective on space shuttle Discovery's ascent and gather additional imagery for the return to flight mission, NASA dispatched a pair of high-flying WB-57 aircraft equipped with sharp video cameras in their noses.
When space shuttle Discovery launched its two solid-fuel booster rockets were equipped with video cameras, providing dazzling footage of separation from the external fuel tank, their free fall and splashdown in the sea.
Mounted atop a modified Boeing 747, space shuttle Discovery was ferried across the country from Edwards Air Force Base, California, to Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Shuttle fuel tank ET-119 is loaded onto a barge at Kennedy Space Center for the trip back to Lockheed Martin's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The tank will be used in the investigation to determine why foam peeled away from Discovery's tank on STS-114 in July.
Launch of the GOES-N weather observatory aboard a Boeing Delta 4 rocket is postponed at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter lifts off aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral's Complex 41.
Explosives topple the abandoned Complex 13 mobile service tower at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This video was shot from the blockhouse roof at neighboring Complex 14 where John Glenn was launched in 1962.