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Цитировать3/14/2012 NuSTAr   NASA SMD Reagan Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/explorer_nustar.htm

ЦитироватьExplorer: NuSTAR (SMEX 11)[/size]

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NuSTAR (SMEX 11) [OSC]

NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) is a X-ray survey mission, which is first satellite to fly a focussing X-ray telescope in space for energies in the 8-80 keV.range.

NuSTAR will survey this energy band for X-ray emission from quasars and Galactic black hole binaries, and obtain spectra of hard X-ray emission from supernova remnants and study the spectral lines created by nuclear transitions which dominate this spectral range.

NuSTAR is a pointed telescope, which will be launched by a Pegasus-XL into a low-Earth, equatorial orbit from Kwajalein. The planned mission will last for three years, although less than half that time is required to meet the core science goals. NuSTAR will ordinarily follow a preprogrammed observation plan, but will have the capability of responding to transient opportunities within a day of notification.

The NuSTAR instrument consists of an array of two co-aligned hard X-ray telescopes. The grazing incidence mirrors focus onto two shielded solid-state pixel detectors, separated by a mast that extends the focal length to 10 m after launch. The optics utilize thin glass shells coated with depth-graded multi-layers to extend the bandpass and FOV over that achievable with standard metal surfaces. Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe) detectors provide excellent spectral resolution and high quantum efficiency without requiring cryogenic operation. All major elements of the instrument have flight heritage (space flight and HEFT balloon experiment).

The long focal length requires the use of a 10 m extendable mast. The design chosen is produced by Able Engineering, and is a straightforward reduction of the 60 m mast successfully deployed for the SRTM program. A laser metrology system monitors the mast alignment.

A decision on proceeding to flight development with NuSTAR was to be made by early 2006 for a launch in 2008, but it was cancelled in February 2006. In September 2007 NASA restarted the program for a planned launch in early 2012.

The spacecraft was originally to be based on the Spectrum Astro SA-200S bus, but after the restart of the program Orbital was selected to provide a LEOStar-2 based bus. During development, the number of X-ray telescopes in the array was reduced from three to two.

Nation:   USA
Type / Application:   Particle imaging
Operator:   NASA
Contractors:   Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC)
Equipment:   2 co-aligned hard X-ray telescopes
Configuration:   LEOStar-2
Propulsion:   ?
Power:   Deployable solar array, batteries
Lifetime:   2 years
Mass:   360 kg
Orbit:   525 km

http://twitter.com/#/OrbitalSciences

Цитировать@NASAKennedy
NASA Kennedy / KSC
At VAFB, all Pegasus XL stages have been delivered for the NuStar launch in February. The rocket's overhead wing has now been attached.

Цитировать@NASAKennedy
NASA Kennedy / KSC
NuStar's Pegasus rocket will undergo a two-day "Vehicle Verification" test this week in preparation for Flight Simulation #1 on Dec. 9.

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/nustar/

ЦитироватьNuSTAR[/size]

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Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

Mission Project Home Page (http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/)

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array is an Explorer mission that will allow astronomers to study the universe in high energy X-rays. Launching in 2012, NuSTAR will be the first focusing hard X-ray telescope to orbit Earth and is expected to greatly exceed the performance of the largest ground-based observatories that have observed this region of the electromagnetic spectrum. NuSTAR will also complement astrophysics missions that explore the cosmos in other regions of the spectrum.

X-ray telescopes such as Chandra and XMM-Newton have observed the X-ray universe at low X-ray energy levels. By focusing higher energy X-rays, NuSTAR will start to answer several fundamental questions about the Universe including:

    How are black holes distributed through the cosmos?
    How were heavy elements forged in the explosions of massive stars?
    What powers the most extreme active galaxies?

NuSTAR's primary science objectives include:

    Conducting a census for black holes on all scales using wide-field surveys of extragalactic fields and the Galactic center.
    Mapping radioactive material in young supernova remnants; Studying the birth of the elements and to understand how stars explode.
    Observing relativistic jets found in the most extreme active galaxies and to understand what powers giant cosmic accelerators.

NuSTAR will also study the origin of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars while responding to targets of opportunity including supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. NuSTAR will perform follow-up observations to discoveries made by Chandra and Spitzer, and will team with Fermi, making simultaneous observations which will greatly enhancing Fermi's science return.[/size]

http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/multimedia-gallery

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NASA's NuSTAR Ships to Vandenberg for March 14 Launch

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15263.html

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. -- 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 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 33-foot (10-meter) 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 will even 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, New York, N.Y., NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Danish Technical University in Denmark, 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 and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120124.html

NuSTAR Spacecraft Arrives in California

ЦитироватьNASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, mission arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this morning after a cross-country trip by truck from the Orbital Sciences Corporation's manufacturing plant in Dulles, Va. The mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean on March 14.

Once the observatory is offloaded at Vandenberg, it will be moved into a processing hangar, joining the Pegasus XL rocket that is set to carry it to space. Over the weekend, technicians will remove its shipping container so that checkout and other processing activities can begin next week. Once the observatory is integrated with the rocket in mid-February, technicians will encapsulate it in the vehicle fairing, which is also scheduled to arrive at Vandenberg today.

After processing is completed, the rocket and spacecraft will be flown on Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll for launch in March.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120127.html

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Launch campaign begins for NASA's black hole hunter

ЦитироватьAfter a cross-country road trip from Orbital Sciences Corp. in Virginia last week, technicians have unpacked NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and begun methodically checking the craft for the final time before its launch date in mid-March.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is the space agency's next astrophysics probe. NuSTAR is a black hole hunter, and its innovative X-ray optics will explore the universe at unmatched sensitivities at high-energy wavelengths.

"We have a lot of exciting observations planned for the first six months," said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR's principal investigator from the California Institute of Technology. "Everybody's getting really psyched."

NuSTAR will be mated to a 25-ton Pegasus XL launch vehicle around Feb. 17, if all goes according to plan, and the 800-pound spacecraft will be enshrouded inside the rocket's nose cone in the last week of February, according to Yunjin Kim, NuSTAR's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Technicians will tow the 55-foot-long booster underneath an Orbital Sciences L-1011 carrier airplane March 4, and the jumbo jet will haul the Pegasus launcher and NuSTAR from Vandenberg to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands two days later, based on the current schedule.

The three-stage, winged Pegasus will be dropped from the L-1011 mothership in the predawn hours of March 15, Kwajalein time, and fired into an equatorial low-inclination orbit more than 340 miles high. The launch is timed for approximately 10:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT) on March 14, but engineers will select the final launch window in the coming weeks.

One week later, the NuSTAR satellite will extend a 33-foot mast with the telescope's precision coated mirrors. NuSTAR's two X-ray detector units are housed inside the craft's main body.

The deployable boom, coupled with new multilayer mirror coatings, allows NuSTAR to bring the high-energy X-ray universe into focus.

"Most X-ray telescopes have long focal lengths, or distances, between their optics and the detectors," Harrison said. "The reason for that is that it's only really possible to reflect X-rays at very glancing angles off of optics, and that requires that you have the detector far away."

The observatory will see the sky in wavelengths between 6,000 and 80,000 electron volts, about the same energies as a dental X-ray. NuSTAR will be the first focusing telescope to observe X-rays at such wavelengths, according to Daniel Stern, the mission's project scientist at JPL.

The European Space Agency's INTEGRAL space telescope observes in a similar range of energies, but NuSTAR is several hundred times more sensitive due to its focusing ability.

"At the resolution of INTEGRAL, you see maybe a half-dozen sources near the galactic center," Stern said. "NuSTAR's focusing X-ray optics buys us a large gain in how tight the resolution is. It will let us see several hundred sources in a similar exposure time, and the science you get from that is just immense."

Harrison said one of NuSTAR's first research targets will be Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Together with other observatories, such as NASA's Chandra telescope, NuSTAR will help explain the cause of occasional X-ray jets emanating from the black hole, which could be signs of planets being swallowed by the object's extreme gravity.

"You can start studying variability and what is going on with the black hole at the center of our galaxy," Stern said. "You can study the nearby populations of neutron stars, black holes, pulsars, and highly-magnetized neutron stars called magnetars. There is very broad science that will come out of that dataset."

NuSTAR will also study other nearby black holes and survey the universe for other supernova remnants.

"There are two objectives," Harrison said. "One is finding new black holes and trying to understand their distribution, their distances and their global properties. And the other is studying black holes that we know and trying to understand what they look like in detail."

According to Harrison, NuSTAR could discover hundreds of new black holes hidden from the views of existing telescopes.

It will also try to find the heat source of the solar corona, the sun's scalding million-degree atmosphere.

NASA has approved the $165 million mission for at least two years of observations, but scientists expect the spacecraft could continue returning science for up to seven years.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/120201update/

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Spacecraft Testing

In a clean room at Vandenberg Air Force Base's processing facility in California, NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft undergoes a limited performance test, a two-day functional checkout of the spacecraft.

Image credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB
Feb. 1, 2012

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/gallery/2012-02-01.html

Guest Post: Jason Davis: NuSTAR telescope to get close look at black holes, supernovae

ЦитироватьAt the center of the Milky Way, a monster awaits. Known as Sagittarius A, this turbulent region of space is believed to contain a black hole four million times more massive than our own sun. Within the black hole -- known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star") -- space and time lose their conventional meanings, as surrounding matter is pulled to inescapable oblivion. A new NASA spacecraft called NuSTAR will study this singularity, along with its brethren in and outside of our galaxy, in unprecedented detail.

NuSTAR, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever developed, improving on the pioneering work of similar spacecraft like the Chandra X-ray Observatory. In addition to surveying a variety of black holes and supernovae, it will also peer into the heart of extreme active galaxies like M87, where streams of energized plasma spew thousands of light years into space from supermassive black holes.

NuSTAR will accomplish its objectives by analyzing the X-rays emanating from its astronomical targets. X-rays are short wavelength, high-energy forms of electromagnetic radiation that cannot be seen by human eyes. Consider a standard tungsten filament light bulb, glowing at a temperature of around 3000 degrees Kelvin. We only see the portion of the bulb's light that has a wavelength between 400 to 700 nanometers. In reality, that's only about a tenth of the bulb's total energy output; most is in the infrared, which has a longer wavelength than visible light.

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For comparison, the core of a supernova has a temperature of about a billion degrees Kelvin. Again, some of the energy is emitted in the visible range, which is why we can see supernovae in other galaxies. Some of the exploding star's energy also blasts out in X-ray form, in very short wavelengths about the size of an atom. Being able to "see" these X-rays with a telescope can tell us a great deal about the most exotic processes in our universe.

So, how does an X-ray telescope work? For starters, it needs to be positioned above the Earth's atmosphere, which acts as a natural X-ray filter. It also requires a drastically different design from an optical telescope. Standard reflecting telescopes use large, curved mirrors nearly perpendicular to incoming light rays, which focus the light in one spot, called the focal point. Such mirrors are said to have a high incidence angle in reference to the incoming light rays. X-rays, however, do not reflect like visible light; they get absorbed by mirrors or pass through them. An X-ray telescope, therefore, must coax the X-rays to their focal point by using shallow incidence angles. The tradeoff is a very long distance between the reflecting optics and the focal point. This is called the focal length, and in NuSTAR's case, it ends up being about 10 meters.

Complicating matters further are the materials required for an X-ray telescope's reflecting surfaces. Even with shallow incidence angles, heavy metals must be used to prevent the X-rays from being absorbed. The Chandra X-ray Observatory users iridium and gold for this task, but these materials can only reflect X-rays with energies up to 10 kiloelectronvolts; anything higher-energy won't bounce towards the focal point. NuSTAR uses multilayer coatings of alternating high and low density materials to increase that limit. This includes tungsten and platinum for the high density coatings, and silicon and carbon for the low densities. The result? NuSTAR can reflect and focus X-rays all the way up to 79 Kiloelectronvolts, resolving images in previously unseen levels of detail.

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Despite the fact that NuSTAR offers significant technological advancements, it won't break the bank -- or the scales -- as it heads into orbit. The telescope is categorized as a NASA Small Explorer mission, part of a spacecraft heritage dating back to Explorer I, America's first satellite. Small Explorers must not cost the space agency more than $120 million. To accomplish this, NuSTAR uses a deployable mast to save on weight and space. Once in orbit, the mast will extend the optics package the necessary 10 meters from the X-ray detectors. This feature allows the spacecraft to fit into a payload fairing only two meters long and one meter in diameter.

NuSTAR's small payload fairing will be sent towards low-Earth orbit by an air-launched Pegasus XL rocket. Air-launching allows for a wider variety of orbits at cheaper prices, providing the payload is light and small enough to qualify. The carrier vehicle -- Orbital Science Corporation's Stargazer aircraft -- will take off from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, fly to an altitude of 12 kilometers, and drop the Pegasus from its belly. After free-falling for a few seconds, the rocket will ignite the first of its three solid rocket stages, sending it to an eventual altitude of 550 kilometers.

Kwajalein Atoll sits at 8

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120217.html

ЦитироватьMating of NASA's NuSTAR observatory to its Pegasus rocket is underway.[/size]
02.17.12

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Artist's Concept of NuSTAR Artist's concept of NuSTAR on orbit. NuSTAR has a 10-m (30') mast that deploys after launch to separate the optics modules (right) from the detectors in the focal plane (left). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is being mated, or attached, to its Pegasus XL rocket today at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. The mission's launch is now scheduled for no earlier than March 21 to allow the launch vehicle team an additional week to complete necessary engineering reviews. After the reviews, the team will begin final preparations for the rocket's delivery to the launch site at Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific.

NuSTAR will probe the hottest, densest and most energetic objects in space, including black holes and the remnants of exploded stars. It will be the first space telescope to capture sharp images in high-energy X-rays, giving astronomers a new tool for understanding the extreme side of our universe.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL; Columbia University, New York; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; the University of California, Berkeley; 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, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ [/size]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/120218delay/

ЦитироватьOne-week launch delay ordered for X-ray telescope[/size]
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 18, 2012

The launch of NASA's NuSTAR space telescope, a $165 million black hole-hunting X-ray observatory, will be delayed one week until March 21 to give engineers extra time to complete engineering rovers of the mission's air-launched Pegasus XL rocket, the space agency announced Friday.

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Artist's concept of the NuSTAR spacecraft in orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
 
"The mission's launch is now scheduled for no earlier than March 21 to allow the launch vehicle team an additional week to complete necessary engineering reviews," said a statement released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "After the reviews, the team will begin final preparations for the rocket's delivery to the launch site at Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific."

Technicians are preparing the Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus XL rocket and the NuSTAR spacecraft for launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The rocket and its carrier airplane, an L-1011 jumbo jet, will fly from California to Kwajalein about a week before launch.

NASA did not disclose details of the engineering reviews on the Pegasus XL launcher. Engineers were attaching the NuSTAR spacecraft to the Pegasus rocket Friday, according to JPL.

The air-launched satellite booster has flown 40 times, and next month's flight will mark the 25th mission of the Pegasus XL configuration, which features more powerful rocket motors than earlier versions.

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File photo of a Pegasus launch. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now
 
The L-1011 airplane will take off from an airstrip at Kwajalein and drop the Pegasus rocket at an altitude of about 39,000 feet, then the winged launcher will ignite and climb to space.

The 51,000-pound booster, powered by three solid rocket stages, will deploy NuSTAR in an equatorial orbit more than 340 miles high. The nearly 800-pound satellite will unfurl a 33-foot boom with X-ray optics a week later and begin its science mission in late April, if launch occurs March 21.

NuSTAR stands for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array.

The mission will explore the high-energy X-ray universe for two years, probing the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, surveying for collapsed dead stars, and studying the exchange of heat between the sun and its million-degree atmosphere. [/size]

NuSTAR's Mirrors Baked in Zhang's Glass Kitchen

ЦитироватьIt pays to persevere. No one knows this better than Will Zhang.

For more than a decade, the astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., experimented with a new technique for efficiently manufacturing super-thin, low-cost curved telescope mirror segments to collect and focus ever-elusive, high-energy X-ray photons.

The fruits of that labor -- a total of 9,000 individual mirror segments -- are now assembled into telescope optics and installed inside NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), a small Explorer mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The agency plans to launch NuSTAR on March 21, 2012 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands aboard a Pegasus rocket attached to the underside of the L-1011 Stargazer aircraft.

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NASA's latest X-ray space telescope, which will detect X-rays from objects ranging from our sun to monstrous black holes billions of light-years away, is unique in that it will be the first orbiting telescope to focus X-rays in the high-energy range, creating the most detailed images ever taken in this slice of the electromagnetic spectrum.

In comparison, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory senses less energetic "soft" X-rays, and therefore, cannot pierce the dust that frequently enshrouds black holes. Once deployed, NuSTAR will complement measurements gathered by Chandra and give scientists a more complete picture of the X-ray universe.

One of NuSTAR's Enabling Technologies

Zhang's mirror segments are one of the advanced technologies that contributed to NuSTAR's development. The mirrors, combined with specialized coatings developed and applied by the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen and a mounting technique developed by Columbia University in New York City, enabled NuSTAR's optics.

The challenge for the observatory's developers was developing an optics system small enough to be housed in a small spacecraft yet provide unprecedented sensitivity and resolution. Measuring only 200 microns thick or 100 times thinner than Chandra's much heavier mirrors, Zhang's mirror segments, coupled with the other technologies, fit the bill.

"It sometimes takes a decade to bring an idea to the point where you have something to show," Zhang said, reflecting on the 14-year effort that started in 1998 when he first conceived a new way to manufacture lightweight, higher-resolution mirrors ideal for small missions, like NuSTAR. "We were fortunate. NASA provided my team with research and development funding, which helped us to advance the technology."

X-ray mirrors must be curved and nested inside an optical assembly so that the highly energetic X-ray photons graze their surface, instead of passing through them — much like a stone skimming the surface of a pond. To make these curved segments, Zhang used flat sheets of smooth, commercially available lightweight glass similar to those used in laptop screens.

The flat sheets of glass, which are about the thickness of three sheets of paper, were placed atop a mandrel or rounded mold that provided the appropriate geometry for mounting in NuSTAR's optic unit. Technicians then placed the mandrel inside an oven that heated the glass to about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. As the glass heated, it softened and folded over the mandrel to produce a curved mirror that was the accurate copy of the mandrel's surface.

"Zhang's technique for forming the thin glass improved the efficiency of producing high-quality segments significantly over what had been done by others, enabling the NuSTAR optics to be built during NuSTAR's rapid development period," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.

Ten Ovens Inside Zhang's Kitchen

At the height of production, Zhang's laboratory included 10 large ovens that produced the 9,000 individual segments. The secret in Zhang's "glass kitchen" was a release layer that prevented the glass from sticking. "This proprietary preparation technique preserved the mirror's surface quality, allowing a nearly 100-percent yield," Zhang said.

The team shipped the baked glass segments to the Danish Technical University where university scientists used a specialized vacuum deposition chamber to apply several hundred alternating layers of either silicon and tungsten, or platinum and carbon, to maximize X-ray reflectance. These thin layers each measured just a few atoms thick.

The Danish Technical University sent the coated mirrors to Columbia University, which used a novel machining and assembly process that it developed to align and assemble the 9,000 mirrors into concentric shells to form an optical assembly that, as an integrated unit, can focus X-rays. The completed optics were then integrated with a folded mast built by ATK-Goleta in Goleta, Calif. Stowed inside the NuSTAR spacecraft, the mast will unfold to a length of 33 feet (10 meters) a week after the spacecraft reaches its orbit to begin the two-year observing mission.

Together, these 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. Outside our galaxy, it will see some of the most powerful black holes and cosmic events known. Data from the mission will provide a better understanding of the extreme physics behind jets that travel nearly at the speed of light, exploding stars and more.

Closer to home, NuSTAR will probe the sun, looking for microflares on the surface that could explain how its million-degree solar corona, or atmosphere, is heated. It will even 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.

"This is a revolutionary mission," Zhang said. "We're so glad we were able to advance our technology to the point where it was ready for NuSTAR. Precision slumping of thin glass sheets has shown to be an excellent way of making lightweight, higher-resolution x-ray optics, as evidenced by the delivery of our mirrors."

For more information about the NuSTAR mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

For more information about Goddard technology, visit: http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/mirror-bake.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15267.html

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15268.html

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http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=232

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http://www.facebook.com/NASAKennedy/posts/10150577004233091

ЦитироватьNASA's Kennedy Space Center

At Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, closeouts of the NuSTAR spacecraft and the Pegasus payload fairing are under way. Fairing installation is scheduled to begin tomorrow.[/size]

Engineers Tuck NuSTAR in its Nose Cone

ЦитироватьTechnicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California are placing the two halves of the rocket nose cone, or fairing, around NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), in preparation for its launch. The launch is scheduled for no earlier than March 21.

The fairing will hold the observatory safely in place atop its Orbital Sciences Corporation rocket, a Pegasus XL. The rocket will blast off from the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft, also from Orbital, near Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. During its ride to space, the fairing will split open like a clamshell, exposing NuSTAR before it is ultimately carried to its final orbit around Earth.

The fairing installation is a two-day process scheduled to be completed on Saturday, March 3.

NuSTAR will study everything from our sun to massive black holes buried in the hearts of galaxies. It will be the first space telescope to capture sharp images in high-energy X-rays, giving astronomers a new tool for understanding the most energetic objects and events in our universe.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology and  managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 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 in Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 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, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-058

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15411.html

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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

ЦитироватьMarch 22     Pegasus XL  •  NuSTAR
Launch window: 1530-1930 GMT (11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. EDT)
Launch site: L-1011, Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands[/size]

NASA to Hold Media Briefing About Upcoming NuSTAR Mission

ЦитироватьNASA will hold a media briefing at 9 a.m. PDT (12 p.m. EDT) 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.

Live streaming video of the briefing will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv or at http://ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

NuSTAR will advance our understanding of how structure in the universe forms and evolves. It will observe some of the hottest, densest and most energetic objects in the universe, including black holes, their high-speed particle jets, ultra-dense neutron stars, supernova remnants, and our sun.

NuSTAR is targeted for launch no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) on March 22. The launch window extends to 12:30 p.m. PDT (3:30 p.m. EDT). The spacecraft will liftoff on an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL launch vehicle, released from an aircraft originating from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Briefing Participants are:

-- Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
-- Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
-- Daniel Stern, NuSTAR project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
-- Yunjin Kim, NuSTAR project manager at JPL

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 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 in Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 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, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120308.html

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=232

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http://msdb.gsfc.nasa.gov/launches.php

ЦитироватьTBD (under review)   NuSTAR

NASA March 13 NuSTAR Media Briefing Postponed
March 12, 2012

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. -- The Tuesday, March 13, media briefing to discuss the upcoming launch of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has been postponed. The spacecraft will lift off on an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, which will be released from an aircraft originating from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The mission's Flight Readiness Review (FRR) is being rescheduled for no earlier than Thursday, March 15, to allow time for a review of data and simulations to qualify software associated with a new Pegasus flight computer.

A revised launch date will be set at the FRR. A pre-launch media briefing will be rescheduled after the FRR is complete.

NuSTAR 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 before. The mission will advance our understanding of how structures in the universe form and evolve. It will observe some of the hottest, densest and most energetic objects in the universe, including black holes, their high-speed particle jets, ultra-dense neutron stars, supernova remnants and our sun.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-068

Компюлента жжот: Космический телескоп НАСА NuSTAR стартует 15 марта (http://science.compulenta.ru/666543/)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27418.msg873630#msg873630

ЦитироватьMEDIA ADVISORY: M12-045

LAUNCH OF NASA'S NUSTAR MISSION POSTPONED

WASHINGTON -- 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.

The spacecraft will lift off on an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket,
which will be released from an aircraft taking off from the Reagan
Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The time
required to complete the software review has moved NuSTAR beyond the
March timeframe currently available on the range at Kwajalein. In the
interim, NASA will coordinate with the launch site to determine the
earliest possible launch opportunity. This is expected to be within
the next two months.

NuSTAR 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 before. The mission will advance our
understanding of how structures in the universe form and evolve. It
will observe some of the hottest, densest and most energetic objects
in the universe, including black holes, their high-speed particle
jets, ultra-dense neutron stars, supernova remnants, and our sun.

For more information about NuSTAR, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

Launch of NASA X-ray telescope targeted for June

ЦитироватьNASA's NuSTAR X-ray astrophysics observatory, grounded in March by concerns with its Pegasus rocket, will have an opportunity to launch in June from a remote Pacific military base, space agency officials said Tuesday.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/23813.jpg)

The Pegasus XL rocket fully integrated for the NuSTAR mission. Credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin
 
Engineering reviews of the air-launched Orbital Sciences Corp. Pegasus rocket continue, according to NASA, with officials focusing on software to be used by a new computer flying on the Pegasus for the first time.

The reviews were not finished in time for the $165 million mission to be ready before the end of a launch window in late March.

"We're still working on the flight software program," said George Diller, a spokesperson at the Kennedy Space Center.

The clamshell-like nose cone on the Pegasus rocket has been cleared for launch. Engineers were studying commonality between the Pegasus payload fairing and the shroud on the ground-launched Taurus rocket, another Orbital Sciences vehicle, which failed due to fairing separation problems on back-to-back flights in 2009 and 2011.

The Pegasus booster has flown 40 times, and the upcoming launch will mark the 25th mission of the Pegasus XL configuration, which features more powerful rocket motors than earlier versions.

The Pegasus XL rocket is fully assembled inside a hangar at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Technicians will tow the rocket to the base's runway a few weeks before launch and bolt it to an L-1011 carrier aircraft, which will fly the Pegasus and NuSTAR payload to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The L-1011 jumbo jet will drop the rocket about 40,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, and the three-stage, winged Pegasus will light to propel the 800-pound NuSTAR satellite into a 340-mile-high orbit.

The U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site should give NASA a specific launch date in a few days. The space agency has requested to launch in the first week of June if possible.

While officials wait for the next launch opportunity, workers will remove the Pegasus payload fairing next week for testing of the NuSTAR spacecraft. Engineers will install an updated flight program into the Pegasus computer when the software analysis is finished, according to Diller.

The NuSTAR mission will be the first flight of the computer on a Pegasus rocket.

NuSTAR stands for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array.

The spacecraft will deploy a 33-foot boom with X-ray optics a week after launch and begin its science mission a few weeks later.

The mission will explore the high-energy X-ray universe for two years, probing the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, surveying for collapsed dead stars, and studying the exchange of heat between the sun and its million-degree atmosphere.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/120403june/

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=232

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http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=232

10.04.2012

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ЦитироватьJune 13     Pegasus XL  •  NuSTAR
Launch window: 1530-1930 GMT (11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. EDT)
Launch site: L-1011, Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands[/size]

Так и не запустили!

США. Отсрочка запуска КА NuSTAR на неопределенный срок.
По сообщению NASA от 16 марта 2012 года, запуск астрономической обсерватории NuSTAR из района а. Кваджелейн, который был запланирован на 21 марта 2012 года, в очередной раз отсрочен на неопределенный период из-за вероятных проблем с передачей команд программного обеспечения ракеты «Пегас XL» на борт ракеты.
Как сообщается, потребуется дополнительное время для проверки летного программного обеспечения, установленного на компьютере ракеты, из-за чего будет пропущено окно запуска для КА NuSTAR, в связи с чем ориентировочная дата запуска не сообщается.
Ракета «Пегас XL» была построена компанией Orbital Sciences Corp, которая также обеспечивает ее управление. Как известно, на счету ракет «Пегас» имеются несколько аварийных запусков.
Space News, 2012, 19/III, vol.23, № 11, p. 3
(переведено мной)

Че у Вас тут все на английском, е-мое!

Программа NuSTAR отличается от проектов подобного рода тем, что на КА установлен фокусирующий телескоп для регистрации высокоэнергетических частиц в диапазоне 6-79 кэВ жесткого рентгеновского излучения. По чувствительности он на два порядка превышает возможности воспринимающих приборов таких действующих космических обсерваторий, как XMM-Newton и Chandra (см. рисунок) и аппаратов для исследования Солнца. КА NuSTAR оснащен приборами с зеркалами скользящего отражения, раскладной мачтой и новейшими датчиками на основе теллурида кадмия и цинка. Приборы для этого КА разработаны консорциумом организаций, в состав которого входит Калифорнийский технологический институт. Руководителем программы является Лаборатория JPL.
 

Научными целями двухлетней программы NuSTAR являются:

NuSTAR (см. рисунок) был разработан консорциумом организаций, включающим Калифорнийский технологический институт (КТИ). Руководство программой возложено на Лабораторию JPL. Заказчиком программы является Центр Годдарда. Целевая аппаратура  изготовлена компанией Orbital Sciences Corp. при участии института КТИ, а раздвижная мачта – компанией АТК-Goletа (Калифорния). Покрытие для оптической (фокусирующей) системы КА NuSTAR разработано Техническим университетом Дании (Копенгаген), а технология монтажа создана Колумбийским университетом (Нью-Йорк).
Оптическую систему КА в течение 14 лет разрабатывала группа ученых Центра Годдарда во главе с У. Чаном (Zhang). Эта система состоит из 9 тыс. отдельных зеркальных сегментов. Толщина зеркал составляет 200 мкм, что в 100 раз тоньше зеркал, установленных на КА Chandra. Зеркала сделаны из плоских гладких облегченных стеклянных пластин, изогнутых в виде параболы. Эти элементы установлены в фокусирующем модуле таким образом, чтобы высокоэнергетические рентгеновские фотоны скользили по их поверхности, а не проходили через них (зеркала Вольтера). Заготовки для этих элементов изготавливались в лаборатории, которой руководил У. Чан.
Для получения необходимой изогнутой формы тонкие стеклянные пластины помещались в специальную изложницу и затем нагревались в печи до температуры около 1100

Aprilen, спасибо!

У меня много всякого разного. Обращайтесь.

NASA's NuSTAR Gearing up for Launch

ЦитироватьFinal 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.

The mission plan is for NuSTAR and its rocket to be attached to the Stargazer plane on June 2. The aircraft will depart California on June 5 and arrive at the Kwajalein launch site on June 6. The launch of NuSTAR from the plane is targeted for 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) on June 13.

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.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-142

Black-Hole Hunter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3EkMlpbJaE

NASA to Hold News Conference About Nustar Launch

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. – NASA will hold a news conference on Wednesday, May 30 at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) to discuss the upcoming launch of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), a mission to hunt for black holes. The event will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington and will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website. In addition, the event will be carried live on Ustream, with a moderated chat available, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 . Questions may be asked via Twitter using the hashtag #asknasa.

NuSTAR will observe some of the hottest, densest and most energetic objects in the universe, including black holes, their high-speed particle jets, ultra-dense neutron stars, supernova remnants and our sun. It will observe high-energy X-rays with much greater sensitivity and clarity than any mission flown to date. Among its several goals, NuSTAR will address the puzzle of how black holes and galaxies evolve together over time.

NuSTAR is scheduled to launch no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) on June 13 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The spacecraft will lift off on an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL launch vehicle, released from an aircraft flying south of Kwajalein.

News conference participants are:

-- Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington
-- Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
-- Daniel Stern, NuSTAR project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena
-- Yunjin Kim, NuSTAR project manager at JPL

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120524.html

Предстартовый брифинг по NuSTAR:
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7620

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/may/HQ_12-177_NuSTAR_LBriefing.html

ЦитироватьRELEASE : 12-177
 
NASA Preparing to Launch Its Newest X-ray Eyes
 
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is being prepared for the final journey to its launch pad on Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. The mission will study everything from massive black holes to our own sun. It is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 13.

"We will see the hottest, densest and most energetic objects with a fundamentally new high-energy X-ray telescope that can obtain much deeper and crisper images than before," said Fiona Harrison, the NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif., who first conceived of the mission 20 years ago.

The observatory is perched atop an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket. If the mission passes its Flight Readiness Review on June 1, the rocket will be strapped to the bottom of an aircraft, the L-1011 Stargazer, also operated by Orbital, on June 2. The Stargazer is scheduled to fly from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California to Kwajalein June 5-6.

On launch day, the Stargazer will take off and at around 11:30 a.m. EDT (8:30 a.m. PDT) will drop the rocket, which will then ignite and carry NuSTAR to a low orbit around Earth.

"NuSTAR uses several innovations for its unprecedented imaging capability and was made possible by many partners," said Yunjin Kim, the project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We're all really excited to see the fruition of our work begin its mission in space."

NuSTAR will be the first space telescope to create focused images of cosmic X-rays with the highest energies. These are the same types of X-rays that doctors use to see your bones and airports use to scan your bags. The telescope will have more than 10 times the resolution, and more than 100 times the sensitivity, of its predecessors while operating in a similar energy range.

The mission will work with other telescopes in space now, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which observes lower-energy X-rays. Together, they will provide a more complete picture of the most energetic and exotic objects in space, such as black holes, dead stars and jets traveling near the speed of light.

"NuSTAR truly demonstrates the value that NASA's research and development programs provide in advancing the nation's science agenda," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director. "Taking just over four years from receiving the project go-ahead to launch, this low-cost Explorer mission will use new mirror and detector technology that was developed in NASA's basic research program and tested in NASA's scientific ballooning program. The result of these modest investments is a small space telescope that will provide world-class science in an important but relatively unexplored band of the electromagnetic spectrum."

NuSTAR will study black holes that are big and small, far and near, answering questions about the formation and physics behind these wonders of the cosmos. The observatory will also investigate how exploding stars forge the elements that make up planets and people, and it will even study our own sun's atmosphere.

The observatory is able to focus the high-energy X-ray light into sharp images because of a complex, innovative telescope design. High-energy light is difficult to focus because it only reflects off mirrors when hitting at nearly parallel angles. NuSTAR solves this problem with nested shells of mirrors. It has the most nested shells ever used in a space telescope, 133 in each of two optic units. The mirrors were molded from ultra-thin glass similar to that found in laptop screens and glazed with even thinner layers of reflective coating.

The telescope also consists of state-of-the-art detectors and a lengthy 33-foot (10-meter) mast, which connects the detectors to the nested mirrors, providing the long distance required to focus the X-rays. This mast is folded up into a canister small enough to fit atop the Pegasus launch vehicle. It will unfurl about seven days after launch. About 23 days later, science operations will begin.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Va. Its instrument was built by a consortium including Caltech; JPL; University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley); Columbia University in New York; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; the Danish Technical University in Denmark; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; and ATK Aerospace Systems in 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 in Rohnert Park, Calif. NASA's Explorer Program is managed by Goddard. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information, visit

http://www.nasa.gov/nustar[/size]

NASA Preparing to Launch its Newest X-Ray Eyes
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120530.html

Видео: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=142531021

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25157.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15631.html)

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has a complex set of mirrors, or optics, that will help it see high-energy X-ray light in greater detail than ever before. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25158.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15632.html)

This image comparison demonstrates NuSTAR's improved ability to focus high-energy X-ray light into sharp images. Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

ЦитироватьВАШИНГТОН, 31 мая. /Корр. ИТАР-ТАСС Иван Лебедев/. Наблюдение за самыми загадочными объектами во Вселенной, в том числе черными дырами и сверхновыми звездами, будет вести американский космический аппарат, получивший название Ядерный спектроскопический телескоп /NuSTAR/. Как сообщило в среду Управление по аэронавтике и исследованию космического пространства /НАСА/, он будет выведен на околоземную орбиту 13 июня и, как ожидается, проработает там не менее пяти лет.
 
НАСА надеется с помощью этого аппарата изучить взаимодействие черных дыр с галактиками, провести наблюдение за потоками элементарных частиц в космическом пространстве, расширить сведения об атмосфере и поверхности Солнца. "Благодаря фундаментально новому телескопу, работающему в рентгеновском диапазоне электромагнитного излучения, мы сможем получить гораздо более глубокие и четкие изображения наиболее раскаленных, плотных и заряженных энергией объектов", - сообщила на пресс- конференции одна из авторов этого проекта - сотрудник Калифорнийского технологического института Фиона Харрисон.
 
Уникальность Ядерного спектроскопического телескопа заключается в том, что он впервые будет вести наблюдение за космическими объектами, фиксируя исходящее от них жесткое рентгеновское излучение. Ряд нынешних аппаратов, в том числе американская орбитальная обсерватория "Чандра", работает только в мягком рентгеновском спектре. Кроме того, новый телескоп имеет разрешающую способность и чувствительность, соответственно, в 10 и 100 раз больше, чем его предшественники. Достигается это с помощью многочисленных зеркал и датчиков электромагнитных волн, установленных на 10-метровой мачте.
 
Телескоп будет выведен на орбиту с помощью носителя "Пегас". В отличие от обычных ракет этот аппарат стартует не с земли, а в воздухе. "Пегас" будет закреплен под фюзеляжем самолета "Эл-1011 Старгейзер", который поднимется в небо и сбросит его на высоте 12 км. Через пять секунд свободного падения включатся маршевые двигатели первой ступени ракеты-носителя. Запуск будет происходить в воздушном пространстве над ракетным полигоном на атолле Кваджалейн /Маршалловы острова/ в Тихом океане.
 
Разработала новый телескоп по заказу НАСА американская компания "Орбитал сайенсиз". Расходы на этот проект будут сравнительно небольшими - около 170 млн долларов. Ученые рассчитывают, что собранные данные послужат важным дополнением к информации, которую передают телескопы "Хаббл", "Спитцер" и "Чандра". Руководитель управления астрофизики НАСА Пол Хертц уверен, что новый уникальный аппарат позволит совершить немало интересных и неожиданных открытий. В то же время он наполовину в шутку, наполовину всерьез признался, что "даже если во Вселенной и есть какая- то другая разумная жизнь, то получить сигналы от внеземных цивилизаций с помощью NuSTAR вряд ли удастся".

http://www.itar-tass.com/c19/434529.html

Цитировать

ЦитироватьВАШИНГТОН, 31 мая. /Корр. ИТАР-ТАСС Иван Лебедев/. Наблюдение за самыми загадочными объектами во Вселенной, в том числе черными дырами и сверхновыми звездами, будет вести американский космический аппарат, получивший название Ядерный спектроскопический телескоп /NuSTAR/. Как сообщило в среду Управление по аэронавтике и исследованию космического пространства /НАСА/, он будет выведен на околоземную орбиту 13 июня и, как ожидается, проработает там не менее пяти лет.
 
НАСА надеется с помощью этого аппарата изучить взаимодействие черных дыр с галактиками, провести наблюдение за потоками элементарных частиц в космическом пространстве, расширить сведения об атмосфере и поверхности Солнца. "Благодаря фундаментально новому телескопу, работающему в рентгеновском диапазоне электромагнитного излучения, мы сможем получить гораздо более глубокие и четкие изображения наиболее раскаленных, плотных и заряженных энергией объектов", - сообщила на пресс- конференции одна из авторов этого проекта - сотрудник Калифорнийского технологического института Фиона Харрисон.
 
Уникальность Ядерного спектроскопического телескопа заключается в том, что он впервые будет вести наблюдение за космическими объектами, фиксируя исходящее от них жесткое рентгеновское излучение. Ряд нынешних аппаратов, в том числе американская орбитальная обсерватория "Чандра", работает только в мягком рентгеновском спектре. Кроме того, новый телескоп имеет разрешающую способность и чувствительность, соответственно, в 10 и 100 раз больше, чем его предшественники. Достигается это с помощью многочисленных зеркал и датчиков электромагнитных волн, установленных на 10-метровой мачте.
 
Телескоп будет выведен на орбиту с помощью носителя "Пегас". В отличие от обычных ракет этот аппарат стартует не с земли, а в воздухе. "Пегас" будет закреплен под фюзеляжем самолета "Эл-1011 Старгейзер", который поднимется в небо и сбросит его на высоте 12 км. Через пять секунд свободного падения включатся маршевые двигатели первой ступени ракеты-носителя. Запуск будет происходить в воздушном пространстве над ракетным полигоном на атолле Кваджалейн /Маршалловы острова/ в Тихом океане.
 
Разработала новый телескоп по заказу НАСА американская компания "Орбитал сайенсиз". Расходы на этот проект будут сравнительно небольшими - около 170 млн долларов. Ученые рассчитывают, что собранные данные послужат важным дополнением к информации, которую передают телескопы "Хаббл", "Спитцер" и "Чандра". Руководитель управления астрофизики НАСА Пол Хертц уверен, что новый уникальный аппарат позволит совершить немало интересных и неожиданных открытий. В то же время он наполовину в шутку, наполовину всерьез признался, что "даже если во Вселенной и есть какая- то другая разумная жизнь, то получить сигналы от внеземных цивилизаций с помощью NuSTAR вряд ли удастся".

http://www.itar-tass.com/c19/434529.html

http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=945340#945340

Цитировать

ЦитироватьВАШИНГТОН, 31 мая. /Корр. ИТАР-ТАСС Иван Лебедев/. Наблюдение за самыми загадочными объектами во Вселенной, в том числе черными дырами и сверхновыми звездами, будет вести американский космический аппарат, получивший название Ядерный спектроскопический телескоп /NuSTAR/. Как сообщило в среду Управление по аэронавтике и исследованию космического пространства /НАСА/, он будет выведен на околоземную орбиту 13 июня и, как ожидается, проработает там не менее пяти лет.
 
НАСА надеется с помощью этого аппарата изучить взаимодействие черных дыр с галактиками, провести наблюдение за потоками элементарных частиц в космическом пространстве, расширить сведения об атмосфере и поверхности Солнца. "Благодаря фундаментально новому телескопу, работающему в рентгеновском диапазоне электромагнитного излучения, мы сможем получить гораздо более глубокие и четкие изображения наиболее раскаленных, плотных и заряженных энергией объектов", - сообщила на пресс- конференции одна из авторов этого проекта - сотрудник Калифорнийского технологического института Фиона Харрисон.
 
Уникальность Ядерного спектроскопического телескопа заключается в том, что он впервые будет вести наблюдение за космическими объектами, фиксируя исходящее от них жесткое рентгеновское излучение. Ряд нынешних аппаратов, в том числе американская орбитальная обсерватория "Чандра", работает только в мягком рентгеновском спектре. Кроме того, новый телескоп имеет разрешающую способность и чувствительность, соответственно, в 10 и 100 раз больше, чем его предшественники. Достигается это с помощью многочисленных зеркал и датчиков электромагнитных волн, установленных на 10-метровой мачте.
 
Телескоп будет выведен на орбиту с помощью носителя "Пегас". В отличие от обычных ракет этот аппарат стартует не с земли, а в воздухе. "Пегас" будет закреплен под фюзеляжем самолета "Эл-1011 Старгейзер", который поднимется в небо и сбросит его на высоте 12 км. Через пять секунд свободного падения включатся маршевые двигатели первой ступени ракеты-носителя. Запуск будет происходить в воздушном пространстве над ракетным полигоном на атолле Кваджалейн /Маршалловы острова/ в Тихом океане.
 
Разработала новый телескоп по заказу НАСА американская компания "Орбитал сайенсиз". Расходы на этот проект будут сравнительно небольшими - около 170 млн долларов. Ученые рассчитывают, что собранные данные послужат важным дополнением к информации, которую передают телескопы "Хаббл", "Спитцер" и "Чандра". Руководитель управления астрофизики НАСА Пол Хертц уверен, что новый уникальный аппарат позволит совершить немало интересных и неожиданных открытий. В то же время он наполовину в шутку, наполовину всерьез признался, что "даже если во Вселенной и есть какая- то другая разумная жизнь, то получить сигналы от внеземных цивилизаций с помощью NuSTAR вряд ли удастся".

http://www.itar-tass.com/c19/434529.html

про Пегас и этот спутник лучше сюда http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=945340&highlight=nustar#945340

тут ведь другой совсем носитель...

- это вклад в общую копилку Орбтала.
Или бабах на этом запуске добавит коммерческого успеха иму? :?

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=232

(http://s58.radikal.ru/i160/1206/a8/e60c7740c303.jpg) (http://s019.radikal.ru/i611/1206/71/1a2ea765f055.jpg)  (http://s018.radikal.ru/i527/1206/1e/d9933d4473a0.jpg) (http://s019.radikal.ru/i631/1206/e6/dc73573bd754.jpg)  (http://s014.radikal.ru/i328/1206/d1/b70b1ade498b.jpg) (http://i017.radikal.ru/1206/5b/770911e1f1df.jpg)  (http://i060.radikal.ru/1206/e0/ea2e458ee7f0.jpg) (http://i060.radikal.ru/1206/41/c0881ababc9b.jpg)

(http://s019.radikal.ru/i637/1206/48/16cfa341838c.jpg) (http://s019.radikal.ru/i603/1206/2c/391013e74b62.jpg)  (http://s55.radikal.ru/i147/1206/73/7eb55dcadb1b.jpg) (http://s017.radikal.ru/i408/1206/67/f6f8b980af47.jpg)  (http://i051.radikal.ru/1206/5d/0009f09da833.jpg) (http://s018.radikal.ru/i513/1206/5a/cf73065e6c96.jpg)

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/status.html

ЦитироватьSATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2012

Loaded with an X-ray telescope payload for NASA, the winged Pegasus rocket left the assembly hangar and joined up with its L-1011 carrier aircraft Saturday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The Orbital Sciences booster will depart the West Coast on Tuesday for a two-day ferryflight to the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the U.S. Army's vast missile range.

On launch day, currently targeted for June 13 (U.S. time), the carrier jet will haul the rocket to 39,000 feet and release it at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT), allowing the three-stage Pegasus to propel the NuSTAR satellite into orbit.

The remote site was selected for the NuSTAR launch since the Pegasus will be aiming for an equatorial orbit, the type of perch that Kwajalein is well positioned to reach.

Weighing 772 pounds, the spacecraft is ideally sized for the Pegasus launch that will be making its 41st flight. Its heritage includes deploying over 70 satellites since 1990 for NASA, commercial customers and the U.S. military.

NuSTAR will extend a 33-foot-long boom once in its 373-mile-high orbit, providing the necessary separation between the spacecraft's optics and X-ray detectors.

The mission is the first space telescope that will provide scientists with "focused" X-ray images of objects in the universe emitting the highest energies, such as supermassive black holes, remnants of collapsed stars and gamma-ray sources. Researchers hope to catch a supernova explosion in our local neighborhood during the mission's two-to-five year life.

"We will see the hottest, densest and most energetic objects with a fundamentally new high-energy X-ray telescope that can obtain much deeper and crisper images than before," said Fiona Harrison, the NuSTAR principal investigator, who first conceived of the mission 20 years ago.

Pegasus and NuSTAR passed their Flight Readiness Review on Friday, clearing the way for the rocket's rollout to the L-1011 park site adjacent to Vandenberg's runway on Saturday. Combined systems testing between the duo will be conducted ahead of the takeoff.

NASA, Orbital and the Air Force will be hosting a tour of the rocket and L-1011 for reporters on Monday. We'll be there, so check back for photos, video and full coverage of the upcoming launch! [/size]

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27418.msg910382#msg910382

ЦитироватьThe rocket is being rolled under the L-1011 just now.

(http://s40.radikal.ru/i088/1206/ef/a8f31f119f64.jpg)

NuSTAR Strapped to its Plane

Цитировать(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/66198.jpg) (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/nustar/20120604/pia15633-full.jpg)

June 04, 2012

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is now perched atop its Pegasus XL rocket, strapped to the plane that will carry the mission to an airborne launch. Launch is scheduled for June 13, no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT).

The plane -- the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft -- is now at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. It is scheduled to fly to Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean from June 5 to 6. About an hour before launch, the plane will lift off from the island, and drop NuSTAR and its rocket over the ocean. The rocket will then ignite, carrying NuSTAR to its final orbit around Earth's equator.

NuSTAR will be the first space telescope to create sharp images of X-rays with high energies, similar to those used by doctors and dentists. It will conduct a census for black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and extreme physics around collapsed stars.

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, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-152

L-1011 and Pegasus tour at Vandenberg

A day before the L-1011 carrier aircraft will depart Vandenberg Air Force Base to ferry the Orbital Sciences air-launched Pegasus rocket and its NASA X-ray space telescope to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, reporters got a tour of the jet and rocket at the "hot pad" staging area adjacent to the runway.

See our Mission Status Center for the latest news on the launch.

Photo credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/tour/

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http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm

ЦитироватьThe Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket with its NuSTAR spacecraft after attachment to the L-1011 carrier aircraft known as "Stargazer." The Pegasus will launch NuSTAR into space where the high-energy x-ray telescope will conduct a census for black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars

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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/takeoff/

ЦитироватьPegasus rocket sets sail to launch NASA telescope[/size]
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: June 5, 2012

Slung beneath the belly of its L-1011 carrier jet, a three-stage Pegasus XL rocket and its NASA space telescope payload flew away from Vandenberg Air Force Base Tuesday afternoon en route to a distant atoll in the equatorial Pacific where the launch will originate next week.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25261.jpg)
The L-1011 takes off from Vandenberg. Credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now
 
The fully assembled rocket left its home port at 12:58 p.m. local (3:58 p.m. EDT; 1958 GMT) destined for the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, part of the U.S. Army's vast missile range in the central Pacific Ocean.

"This is the only air-launched vehicle in the world for small satellites so it really is a special airplane and a special rocket," said Bryan Baldwin, the long-time manager of the Pegasus program at Orbital Sciences.

The "Stargazer" jet was wheels-up from Vandenberg's three-mile-long concrete Runway 30 under the control of veteran L-1011 pilot Bill Weaver, beginning the 4,700-mile trip that includes an overnight stop at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii.

Equipment to provide conditioned air to the rocket has been pre-staged in Hawaii for quick hookup to the rocket once it gets there.

The aircraft crew said Tuesday's leg would take nearly five hours and Wednesday's would last about six hours as they use the inbound flight to practice the carrier jet's flight course and test the telemetry communication links between the rocket and range before landing.

The rocket will be powered throughout the ferryflight so engineers stationed aboard the aircraft can monitor Pegasus systems and its state of health.

Arrival at Kwajalein will kick off several days of final tests, rehearsals and reviews before the June 13 (U.S. time) launch to deliver NASA's NuSTAR X-ray space observatory into orbit around Earth on a $180 million mission to seek out black holes.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25262.jpg)
An artist's concept of NuSTAR in space with its boom deployed between the telescope optics and X-ray detectors. Credit: NASA
 
The far-away locale is ideally positioned to place the satellite into a 373-mile-high orbit that hugs the equator, going no further north or south than 6 degrees latitude. The atoll is halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

Launch was slated to occur in March, but officials ordered a standdown to complete the validation of enhanced software in the Pegasus' next-generation flight computer. Waiting for the next available launch opportunity at Kwajalein then drove the mission to June.

Assembly and testing of the Pegasus vehicle was conducted in Building 1555 at Vandenberg, a large hangar with picturesque views of the Pacific and launch pads used by current Atlas and future Falcon rockets.

NuSTAR arrived at Vandenberg on January 27 after a cross-country ride from Orbital Sciences' satellite production facility in Virginia, and was offload into a tented enclosure next to Pegasus for final checks, illumination testing of its solar array, flight simulations, mounting onto the rocket's third stage and installation of the two-piece nose cone around the satellite.

The finished product -- a 51,000-pound rocket with its iconic wing, rudder and fins -- was rolled out Saturday morning for the 3.8-mile drive to Vandenberg's runway to join the L-1011. The carrier jet, which is stored in Mojave, California, flew in last week to pick up Pegasus.

The aircraft was jacked up, allowing the trailer hauling the rocket to slide underneath. Ground crews hoisted Pegasus and firmly engaged five hooks to lock the 55-foot-long booster onto the L-1011 later that same day.

"Processing on the rocket has gone very well," said Baldwin. "The rocket mated up very well, no real issues."

A comprehensive combined systems test between all of the elements was run Sunday and the aircraft was fueled Monday ahead of the ferryflight departure.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25263.jpg)
Pegasus mounted to the L-1011. Credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now
See photo gallery
 
"Stargazer" is flying this mission with three new, fuel-efficient engines on the Lockheed TriStar aircraft originally built in the 1960s and purchased from Air Canada for conversion into the Pegasus launcher.

The first leg of the journey to Kwajalein takes the team to Honolulu for refueling and sleep Tuesday night. A separate jet with most of the launch crew left Vandenberg an hour before the Pegasus, flying weather reconnaissance out in front of the L-1011.

About 80 people from NASA, Orbital Sciences and the other mission partners are traveling to the remote launch site to support.

The planned launch time next Wednesday, June 13 is 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT), the opening of a four-hour window extending to 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT).

Backup launch opportunities are possible the following two days, if needed, plus the potential for two more, Baldwin said. After that, it could be November before another slot opens up at Kwajalein.

"It looks like we got about five days (next week). We've never needed that many days before (to get a launch off)," Baldwin added. "But launch availability after those five days is challenging...But you know how the rocket business goes. Things get moved around and spots could open up."

About an hour before the launch time, the L-1011 will take off from the Kwajalein runway, manned in the cockpit by the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, plus a pair of launch team members working at consoles where first class would be located aboard the aircraft.

The intended drop point is located 150 miles south of the runway, 39,000 feet above the Pacific. With the Orbital launch conductor's approval from the control room back at the atoll, co-pilt Ebb Harris will flip the arm switch and then push the release button to cast the rocket free while traveling at Mach 0.8.

After falling for five seconds, the first stage will ignite to begin the 13-minute climb to orbit.

"We've had some great launches and hope this will be another in a string of fully successful missions," said Baldwin.

Pegasus has launched more than 70 satellites since 1990 and racked up 26 consecutive successful launches over the past 15 years.[/size]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/status.html

ЦитироватьWEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012
The L-1011 safely landed in Hawaii last night, completing the first leg of its two-day ferryflight from California to the Kwajalein Atoll that will stretch over 4,000 miles. A NASA spokesperson says the trip will resume at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) today.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/takeoffgallery/

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NASA to Host News Teleconference About NuSTAR Launch

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news teleconference at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) June 11 to discuss the upcoming launch of its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observatory, scheduled for no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) June 13.

The observatory, a black-hole hunter with sharp X-ray eyes, will be launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. NuSTAR is attached to an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket, which is mounted on the bottom of an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft. The airplane will take off from the atoll and release the rocket, which will ignite its engines in the air. The Stargazer plane departed Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California on June 5 and will land at Kwajalein today, June 6.

Panelists include:

-- Omar Baez, NASA launch director, Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
-- Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
-- William Craig, NuSTAR instrument manager, University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
-- Grace Baird, NuSTAR bus chief engineer, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va.

The news teleconference will take place at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Graphics presented during the teleconference will be online shortly before the event begins, at http://1.usa.gov/nustar .

Live audio of the teleconference will be available at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio .

On June 13, launch coverage and commentary will be broadcast online beginning 90 minutes before launch at http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-157b

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/NuSTARpresskit.pdf

http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=812

ЦитироватьOrbital's Pegasus Rocket Carrying NASA's NuSTAR Satellite Arrives at Kwajalein Atoll Launch Site[/size]

-- Launch of NASA Astrophysics Satellite to Originate from Equatorial Range Following Trans-Pacific Flight of "Stargazer" Carrier Aircraft with Pegasus Rocket --

-- Orbital-Built NuSTAR Satellite to Search for Black Holes in the Galaxy Following its Launch into Low-Earth Orbit –

(Dulles, VA 7 June 2012) -- Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that its Pegasus® rocket, which will launch NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite, has arrived at its launch site in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Following a 4,200 nautical mile ferry flight that included a refueling stop at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, Orbital's "Stargazer" L-1011 carrier aircraft arrived at the Reagan Test Site airfield on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where the NuSTAR launch will originate. The launch is currently scheduled for June 13 at approximately 11:30 a.m. (EDT), subject to final pre-launch testing and acceptable weather conditions at the time of launch.

During its mission, NuSTAR will use high-energy x-rays to detect black holes and other energetic phenomena in the universe with the purpose of expanding our understanding of the origins and destinies of stars and galaxies. NuSTAR will have more than one hundred times the sensitivity of previous instruments to detect black holes and will be the first focusing hard x-ray telescope in space.

For the NuSTAR mission, Orbital is providing the spacecraft platform, performing overall system integration, and conducting the launch operations with its Pegasus air-launched rocket, a comprehensive mission support combination that it has previously carried out for numerous successful NASA scientific missions such as the SORCE, GALEX, AIM and IBEX projects.

The NuSTAR satellite project is led by Dr. Fiona Harrison, the mission's Principal Investigator from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). It is part of NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) series that is managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. These low-cost, highly effective small satellite missions have enabled scientists to gather critical data about the Earth's environment, the solar system and beyond. In addition to Caltech, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is one of Orbital's key mission partners on the NuSTAR project.

Pegasus is the world's leading launch system for the deployment of small satellites into low-Earth orbit. Its patented air-launch system, in which the rocket is launched from beneath Orbital's "Stargazer" L-1011 carrier aircraft over the ocean, reduces cost and provides customers with unparalleled flexibility to operate from virtually anywhere on Earth with minimal ground support requirements. The NuSTAR launch from Kwajalein is an example of its unrivaled mission versatility. The launch of the NuSTAR satellite will be the 41st Pegasus mission since its introduction in 1990. It remains the world's only small space launch vehicle that is certified with NASA's Payload Risk Category 3, which the space agency reserves for its highest value space missions.

About Orbital

Orbital develops and manufactures small- and medium-class rockets and space systems for commercial, military and civil government customers. The company's primary products are satellites and launch vehicles, including low-Earth orbit, geosynchronous-Earth orbit and planetary exploration spacecraft for communications, remote sensing, scientific and defense missions; human-rated space systems for Earth-orbit, lunar and other missions; ground- and air-launched rockets that deliver satellites into orbit; and missile defense systems that are used as interceptor and target vehicles. Orbital also provides satellite subsystems and space-related technical services to U.S. Government agencies and laboratories.

More information about Orbital can be found at http://www.orbital.com[/size]

https://twitter.com/OrbitalSciences

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Стало быть определились с временем запуска. А трансляция будет?

ЦитироватьNASA to Host News Teleconference About NuSTAR Launch

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news teleconference at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT) June 11 to discuss the upcoming launch of its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observatory, scheduled for no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT) June 13.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-157b

А точное время запуска известно?

ЦитироватьА трансляция будет?

Вроде должна быть  :P .

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

http://1.usa.gov/nustar

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ЦитироватьА точное время запуска известно?

Любой день в году:

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NuSTAR to Drop From Plane and Rocket Into Space

ЦитироватьNASA's NuSTAR mission is scheduled to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean on June 13, no earlier than 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT). The observatory, which will hunt for black holes and other exotic objects using specialized X-ray eyes, will be launched from a Pegasus XL rocket carried by an Orbital Science Corporation L-1011 "Stargazer" plane. The plane will take off from Kwajalein Atoll an hour before launch, flying out over the Pacific Ocean.

About five seconds before launch, the Pegasus XL rocket -- also from Orbital -- will drop from the plane, ignite and propel NuSTAR to space. A video showing a previous Pegasus launch is online at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=128352201 .

Why launch from the air? Plane-assisted launches are less expensive than those that take place from the ground. Less fuel is needed to boost cargo away from the pull of Earth's gravity. NuSTAR is part of NASA's Small Explorer program, which builds focused science missions at relatively low costs.

If all goes as planned, the following milestones will occur on June 13. Times listed are for a launch at the start of a four-hour window.

Takeoff

The Stargazer carrier aircraft, with the Pegasus launch vehicle and NuSTAR spacecraft strapped to its belly, will take off from Kwajalein's Bucholz Auxiliary Airfield an hour before launch, and climb to an altitude of about 39,000 feet (11,900 meters). This should occur around 7:30 a.m. PDT (10:30 a.m. EDT).

The Drop

The carrier aircraft will release the Pegasus rocket at 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT). The rocket will free-fall for about five seconds before igniting.

Ignition

At about 8:30 a.m. PDT (11:30 a.m. EDT), the rocket carrying NuSTAR will ignite. Its first-stage motor will burn for 70 seconds and then drop away. The second-stage motor will burn for about a minute-and-a-half.

Splitting the Nose Cone

While the second stage is burning, pyrotechnic devices will be fired to release the nose cone, or fairing, that encapsulates the observatory. NuSTAR will be exposed to space for the first time. This event is scheduled to occur around 8:33 a.m. PDT (11:33 a.m. EDT).

Separating From the Rocket

At about 8:43 a.m. PDT (11:43 a.m. EDT), 13 minutes after the initial release from the Stargazer, NuSTAR will separate from the Pegasus rocket's third stage. At this point, NuSTAR will be in its final orbit -- a low-Earth equatorial orbit at an altitude of approximately 340 miles (600 kilometers) and an inclination of six degrees.

Phoning Home

When NuSTAR separates from the Pegasus, the satellite's system that controls its orientation in space, or "attitude," will begin to stabilize it, and the spacecraft solar arrays will be deployed. Around this time, its first signal will be received on the ground via NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Over the following week, NuSTAR personnel will perform a series of checkouts to ensure that all spacecraft subsystems are operating nominally.

Deploying the Boom

Roughly one week after launch, engineers will command NuSTAR to deploy its lengthy 33-foot (10-meter) boom, allowing the telescope to focus X-ray light into crisp images. Unlike visible-light telescopes, X-ray telescopes require a long distance between the mirrors and detectors to focus the light. It's a bit like wearing glasses a few feet away from your face.

Science operations are expected to begin about 30 days after launch.

On launch day, live commentary and coverage will be broadcast online beginning at 7 a.m. PDT (10 a.m. EDT) at http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

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, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120611.html

Отсчитывают последние часы до запуска

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/main/index.html

Countdown for Pegasus

T-4 hours, 15 minutes
    Ground operations checks are completed

T-3 hours, 15 minutes
    NASA launch manager and NASA advisory manager take a "management on station" voice-check poll

T-2 hours, 20 minutes
    Flight crew enters the L-1011 carrier aircraft
    Pilot completes prestart checklist

T-2 hours, 18 minutes
    Engine start poll is taken

T-2 hours, 10 minutes through T-1 hour, 20 minutes
    Ground launch team receives "go" for engine start
    Start engine No. 2
    Start engines No. 1 and 3
    Aircraft stairs are removed and the hatch is closed

T-1 hour, 45 minutes through T-45 minutes
    L-1011 pre-taxi checklist complete
    Flight Termination System (FTS) power on
    Voice checks complete

T-1 hour, 15 minutes
    "Go" for taxi after tower clearance is given
    Taxi is under way

T-1 hour, 3 minutes
    Last chance status check completed

T-1 hour
    Ground launch team "ready for takeoff" poll taken
    Launch team is "go" for takeoff
    After tower clearance, the L-1011 carrier aircraft takes off
    Chase plane takes off to follow the L-1011

T-30 minutes
    Chase plane visual inspection
    Report on turbulence, winds and clouds
    at launch point requested

T-15 minutes
    Release mechanism is armed

T-12 minutes
    Verify FTS check is nominal
    Transfer avionics to internal power

T-9 minutes
    Weather status report is confirmed and green for launch
    Peak power has been passed
    L-1011 heads for the drop point

T-7 minutes
    Range status report is given
    Verify transient power is "on" and vehicle is safe

T-5 minutes
    NASA launch manager conducts final launch readiness poll
    to enter terminal countdown
    Avionics now on internal power

T-45 seconds
    Fin battery is activated

T-20 seconds
    Verify fin testing and heading status

T-10 seconds
    Pilot confirms Pegasus is "go" for launch

T-Zero
    Pegasus is dropped from the L-1011

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/launch/launch_blog.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/status.html

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27418.msg915078#msg915078

Цитировать

ЦитироватьHi folks. Sure wish the wind would die down; we're always riding our bikes into the wind, it seems.

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Launch readiness review went very well this morning. Good weather forecast, too.

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До запуска остается:

T-6 hour, 5 minutes

L-1011 aircraft crew interview

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/cockpit.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQQ_4NHRjdE

ЦитироватьНачат обратный отсчет перед запуском рентгеновского телескопа NuSTAR
[/size]

Новый рентгеновский орбитальный телескоп НАСА NuSTAR, предназначенный, в частности, для изучения процессов в ближайших окрестностях черных дыр, готов к старту, который назначен на 19.30 мск среды, сообщает американское аэрокосмическое ведомство.
Космический аппарат, масса которого составляет около 350 килограммов, будет запущен с помощью ракеты Pegasus XL, которая будет стартовать, отделившись от самолета на высоте 11,9 тысячи метров.

В настоящее время стартовая команда начала обратный отсчет. Самолет-носитель L-1011 Stargazer ("Звездочет") взлетит с трехступенчатой ракетой Pegasus XL производства компании Orbital Sciences с атолла Кваджалейн (Маршалловы острова) в 18.30 мск, а в 19.30 мск должен сбросить ракету.
Проект NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), общая стоимость которого составляет 180 миллионов долларов, призван заполнить "лакуну" в потоке данных, поступающих с других рентгеновских обсерваторий, таких, как "Чандра" и XMM-Newton. Новый телескоп будет работать в диапазоне рентгеновского излучения высокой энергии, причем в этом диапазоне он будет иметь чувствительность в 100 раз выше и пространственное разрешение в 10 раз лучше, чем все другие рентгеновские телескопы.
Одной из главных задач NuSTAR будет исследование ближайших окрестностей сверхмассивных черных дыр в центрах галактик. Вещество, которое притягивает черная дыра, образует вокруг нее диск аккреции, температура которого достигает миллионов градусов. Этот диск является источником мощного рентгеновского излучения, которое будет фиксировать телескоп.
Кроме того, NuSTAR сможет наблюдать за остатками взрывов сверхновых звезд - нейтронными звездами и черными дырами звездной массы, а также фиксировать гамма-всплески и взрывы сверхновых.
Самолет L-1011 взлетит с авиабазы на атолле Кваджалейн (Маршалловы острова) и отправится в точку старта в 160 километрах к югу от атолла. Окно для запуска продолжительностью четыре часа открывается в 15.30 по Гринвичу (19.30 мск).
После того, как второй пилот "Звездочета" нажмет кнопку высвобождения ракеты, Pegasus XL в течение пяти секунд будет падать, после чего запустится двигатель первой ступени ракеты. Через десять минут после сброса ракеты обсерватория отделится от третьей ступени и окажется на целевой орбите высотой 600 километров.
Затем в течение 23 дней аппарат будет проходить фазу тестирования и калибровки, а затем развернет свою 10-метровую мачту, на которой находится рентгеновская оптика.
В отличие от видимого излучения, рентгеновские лучи могут отражаться только под очень небольшими углами, поэтому рентгеновские телескопы требуют очень большого расстояния между детекторами и "зеркалами". Поэтому для размещения оптики специалистам пришлось использовать специально разработанную компанией ATK мачту.
Как ожидается, аппарат NuSTAR будет работать в космосе по меньшей мере два года.

http://ria.ru/science/20120613/672313648.html

Запуск перенесен и будет в 20:00 мск.

http://ria.ru/science/20120613/672431741.html

ЦитироватьОтсчитывают последние часы до запуска

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/main/index.html

Часики на 30 минут спешат.  :lol:

Цитировать

ЦитироватьОтсчитывают последние часы до запуска

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/main/index.html

Часики на 30 минут спешат.  :lol:

Наоборот, опаздывают... Сообщение о переносе запуска было дано 1,5 часа назад, а про часики наверное забыли  :oops: ...

О, часы заработали в норме  8).  До пуска 1 час 5 минут.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-ksc

T-60 minutes

Самолет-носитель L-1011 взлетел  :) .

Самолет-носитель L-1011 на месте, остается 35 минут до запуска .

T-30 minutes

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25353.jpg)

Механизм сброса ракеты взведен

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/nustar/status.html

Цитировать1540 GMT (11:40 a.m. EDT)
 T-minus 20 minutes and counting. Although the countdown is managed by the ground-based team, the aircraft crew actually pushes the button to launch Pegasus on its journey into space.

The circuitry for the release system has been armed by the launch panel operator aboard the aircraft. Later, a switch will be flipped in the cockpit by the co-pilot. This switch, located on the right-hand portion of the center console between the captain and pilot, "enables" the release to be become active.

In the final seconds of the countdown the Orbital Sciences launch conductor on the ground will call out "drop on my mark...3, 2, 1, drop." At that point, the co-pilot will push a button next to the enable switch, releasing the Pegasus rocket and NuSTAR to fall away from the L-1011 aircraft. See a photo of the drop button taken during a tour of the L-1011.

"It takes a couple seconds and then it releases," Capt. Bill Weaver explained during a previous interview. "There is no doubt about it that the rocket has released. There is a tremendous reaction throughout the airplane. It weighs 52,000 pounds, so we experience an instantaneous weight loss of 52,000 pounds and the center of gravity shifts aft 10 percent, so the nose comes up in a pretty pronounced fashion, which is good because we like that for separation.

"We drop it at 39,000 feet and after the drop we end up eventually around 41,000, we gain a couple thousand feet altitude or separation and also we do about a 10 degree heading change to get out of the rocket exhaust.

"Five seconds after we drop it, (Pegasus) is about 500 feet below drop altitude and the first stage lights off and it pulls up. In the meantime, we have turned 10 degrees off the heading. By the time we roll out we can see it. We can hear it. When that rocket motor lights off it sounds like a freight train roaring underneath the plane. It is a pretty impressive event.

"We don't really see till we get out of the bank, then we have a really good view. We can see it all the way through first stage burn out, second stage ignition. We can't normally see the stage 3. One time we did at Vandenberg. Conditions were just right -- perfect sun, perfect atmosphere."
 
1538 GMT (11:38 a.m. EDT)
 T-minus 22 minutes and counting. The release mechanism that will drop the Pegasus rocket from the L-1011 carrier jet was just armed. This hydraulic system involves four main hooks holding the Pegasus to the aircraft as well as a nose hook. Co-pilot Ebb Harris will command the actual drop event by pushing a button in the cockpit. [/size]

ЦитироватьМеханизм сброса ракеты взведен

Блин, какого черта время форума отличается от моего +3.00?
Старт через 12 минут вроде. Ракета под пузом. Неужели увижу хоть один старт онлайн.  :lol:

В смысле удачный, а то мне не везет, или не мне  :D

а что у них на одном из ракурсов на КП пусто практически?

Блин, не видно ничего и отсчет пропал :(

Улетел! :wink:

Да, улетела  8) .

И не видать ничего :D

Пошла родная!!!

Цитировать1603 GMT (12:03 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 3 minutes. The flight path, altitude and all systems are nominal aboard the Pegasus.

1603 GMT (12:03 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 2 minutes, 40 seconds. The solid-fueled second stage has burned out. The Pegasus rocket is now in a coast period for the next few of minutes as it ascends toward the high point of its trajectory achieved by the first two stages. During this time the rocket will compute the performance of the flight thus far and adjust the third stage ignition time if necessary.

1602 GMT (12:02 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 2 minute, 15 seconds. The two halves of the payload fairing enclosing the NuSTAR satellite on the front end of the Pegasus rocket has been jettisoned. Second stage still burning as the vehicle climbs into space.

1602 GMT (12:02 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 1 minute, 35 seconds. STAGING. The first stage has jettisoned, allowing the Pegasus' second stage to ignite!

The first stage was 33.7 feet long, 4.2 feet in diameter, a wingspan of 22 feet and produced 163,000 pounds of thrust. The second stage is 4.2 feet long and 4.2 feet wide for 44,000 pounds of thrust.

1601 GMT (12:01 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 1 minute, 18 seconds. The solid-propellant first stage has burned out. The vehicle is now in a ballistic coast for a few seconds before the spent stage is jettisoned and the second stage ignites.

1601 GMT (12:01 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 1 minute. The rocket is more than 100,000 feet in altitude with a velocity now exceeding 2,500 mph.

1601 GMT (12:01 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 40 seconds. Passing through the region of maximum aerodynamic pressure.

1601 GMT (12:01 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 30 seconds. The Pegasus rocket is pitched up 35 degrees as it climbs on the power of its solid-fuel first stage motor at over 1,500 mph.
 
1601 GMT (12:01 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 20 seconds. Pegasus has gone supersonic as the winged first stage propels the 55-foot-long rocket through the predawn sky.

1600:42 GMT (12:00:42 p.m. EDT)
 IGNITION of the Pegasus rocket launching NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescope, bringing the high-energy universe into focus!

1600:37 GMT (12:00:37 p.m. EDT)
 DROP. Pegasus is away! The Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket has been released from the L-1011 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean about 120 miles south of Kwajalein Atoll[/size].

Цитировать1607 GMT (12:07 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 6 minutes, 55 seconds. Pegasus is 330 miles in altitude.

1606 GMT (12:06 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 5 minutes, 40 seconds. The rocket is in a good orientation and the power system is strong.

1605 GMT (12:05 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 5 minutes, 15 seconds. Altitude is 265 miles as Pegasus continues in the ballistic climb.

1605 GMT (12:05 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 4 minutes, 30 seconds. Pegasus is 220 miles in altitude, traveling at 11,400 miles per hour.

1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 4 minutes. No problems have been reported in today's flight.[/size]

ЦитироватьNASA запустило орбитальную рентгеновскую обсерваторию[/size]

NASA запустило космический телескоп NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array). Прямую трансляцию этого события Американское космическое агентство вело в прямом эфире.

 Аппарат был запущен на ракете Pegasus с самолета Stargazer. Ракета-носитель должна вывести аппарат на расчетную геоцентрическую низкоапогейную орбиту высотой примерно 550 километров. Предполагаемое время работы аппарата составляет 2 года.

 NuSTAR представляет собой космический телескоп, который будет наблюдать за астрономическими объектами в рентгеновском диапазоне. Аппарат сконцентрируется на регистрации излучения с энергиями от 5 до 80 килоэлектровольт. Зеркало аппарата состоит из 4680 сегментов и обеспечивает беспрецедентное разрешение в диапазоне жесткого рентгеновского излучения.

 Источниками изучаемого излучения являются акреционные диски сверхмассивных черных дыр, квазары - активные центры удаленных галактик. Планируется, что данные телескопа помогут прояснить детали образования тяжелых элементов в результате взрыва сверхновых благодаря так называемому R-процессу.

 Разработка телескопа началась в 2005 году, однако в 2007-м из-за сокращения бюджета NASA на научные программы проект был заморожен. В этом же году, однако, ученые возобновили работы по миссии. Запуск аппарата неоднократно откладывался - изначально, он планировался на август 2011 года. Последней вероятной датой старта было 14 марта 2012 года.

http://lenta.ru/news/2012/06/13/nustar/

Надо бы в заголовке темы поставить точное время - 20:00:37 ЛМВ.

Цитировать1609 GMT (12:09 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 8 minutes, 30 seconds. The vehicle is now reorienting in preparation for stage separation and third stage burn.

1609 GMT (12:09 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 8 minutes, 20 seconds. Pegasus is 372 miles in altitude.

1607 GMT (12:07 p.m. EDT)
 NuSTAR is headed to orbit for its X-ray astronomy mission to gaze at the remnants of exploded stars, study the extreme physics around black holes and observe our own Sun's corona.[/size]

SCSep? - это отделение чего?

Подключился радар с Гаваев.

ЦитироватьSCSep? - это отделение чего?

Отделение космического аппарата.

Цитировать1611 GMT (12:11 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 10 minutes, 41 seconds. Burnout of the third stage motor has been confirmed. Standing by for release of the satellite about three minutes from now.

1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 9 minutes, 36 seconds. IGNITION. The solid-fueled third stage motor has been lit, accelerating the NuSTAR spacecraft the rest of the way into orbit! The third stage is 4.4 feet long and 3.2 feet in diameter with a thrust of 8,000 pounds.

1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 9 minutes, 25 seconds. STAGING. The spent second stage has separated.[/size]

Надо бы в заголовке темы поставить точное время - 20:00:37 ЛМВ ;).

Ведут только Гаваи.

ЦитироватьRIA Science @riascience

51 сек
Две минуты до отделения #NuSTAR от третьей ступени ракеты

Предварительные данные показывают, что #NuSTAR выходит на запланированную орбиту.

третья ступень запущена #NuSTAR

Солнечные батареи #NuSTAR поймали солнце.

Pegasus на высоте 560 километра над Землей, идет подготовка к запуску третьей ступени

Цитировать1614 GMT (12:14 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 13 minutes, 43 seconds. SPACECRAFT SEPARATION! The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array spacecraft, NuSTAR, has been deployed from the Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, completing today's launch!

1612 GMT (12:12 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 12 minutes. "Separation is confirmed by three wires, and if more than two have been opened, then we know the spacecraft has been separated," Yunjin Kim, NuSTAR project manager, previewed before launch.

"As soon as the spacecraft has been separated, we turn on the transceiver...and start to communicate with the ground through TDRSS that basically the spacecraft is working. The ACS (attitude control) system starts controlling it and pointing it to the right direction, and then we deploy the solar array."

Deployment of the 33-foot-long mast between the telescope optics and the X-ray detectors will occur next week.

"Then we do the spacecraft checkout roughly about a week. On the seventh day, we will actually deploy the mast. It's a 10-meter mast, so we have seven non-explosive actuators that need to be fired to release it, and then we'll deploy the mast. It takes roughly about 25 minutes to deploy," Kim said.

Commission of the observatory will take a few weeks before scientific research begins with NASA's newest space telescope.

"Altogether from launch until starting to acquire the science data, the nominal plan is 30 days."

1611 GMT (12:11 p.m. EDT)
 T+plus 11 minutes. Quick-look data shows the rocket has achieved the proper orbit.[/size]

Цитировать

ЦитироватьSCSep? - это отделение чего?

Отделение космического аппарата.

Спасибо, мог и сам догадаться, у Пегаса 3 ступени.  :)

Пойду за пивом, надо отметить это дело.

ЦитироватьRIA Science @riascience

Солнечные батареи #NuSTAR начали разворачиваться

Все, полетел сам #NuSTAR

Видео запуска #NuSTAR http://youtu.be/hx1uWpeTtqg

доп

ЦитироватьСолнечные батареи #NuSTAR полностью раскрыты
13 июня 12 в 20:27

NASA's NuSTAR Mission Begins

ЦитироватьConfirmation of the successful deployment of NuSTAR's solar arrays has been received. The spacecraft's science mission begins in about 30 days.

The 772-pound NuSTAR will spend at least two years observing high-energy X-rays more closely, in higher resolution, than any space telescope before it. On the electromagnetic spectrum, high-energy X-rays are beyond the scope of visible light and are challenging to detect. NuSTAR's advanced design uses two sets of 133 thin, nested shells of mirrors to capture the X-rays as they bounce off the reflecting surfaces at glancing angles. The expected result is an orbiting observatory that enables astronomers to see the universe in an additional band of light, advancing our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/main/index.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120613.html

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=146251511

del

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/06/orbitals-pegasus-launch-nasas-nustar-spacecraft/

ЦитироватьOrbital's Pegasus successfully launches NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft[/size]
June 13th, 2012 by William Graham

Orbital Sciences Corporation have launched NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft Thursday. The spacecraft was deployed by a Pegasus-XL carrier rocket dropped from an aircraft flying from the Bucholz Army Airfield in Kwajalein Atoll. Launch came 30 minutes into a four hour window, resulting in a T-0 of 04:00 local time (16:00 UTC on Wednesday).

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25354.jpg)

Pegasus Mission:

NuSTAR, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, is a high-energy x-ray astronomy satellite; intended to be the first mission to produce focussed images of x-ray sources with energies of between 8 and 80 kiloelectronvolts.

The spacecraft was constructed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, around the LEOStar-2 satellite bus. NuSTAR will be the sixth LEOStar-2 to fly, although two of the previous missions, OrbView-4 and OCO, were lost in launch failures.

Stowed inside the Pegasus-XL payload fairing, NuSTAR measures 1.2 by 2.2 metres (3.9 x 7.2 feet). After launch, it will deploy a solar panel, and a 10 metre (33 foot) long mast to separate the telescopes' optics from their instruments, increasing their focal length so they can detect x-rays.

The mast is derived from the one used for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, carried by Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-99, and was constructed by ATK. The spacecraft has a mass of 350 kilograms (772 pounds), of which 171 kilograms (377 lb) is the scientific instruments.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25355.jpg)

NuSTAR carries two telescopes with cadmium-zinc telluride detectors, providing it with a 64 by 64 pixel readout. Its mirrors are comprised of thousands of curved glass segments arranged in a cylindrical structure comprised of 133 shells a fifth of a millimetre (8 thou) thick, with graphite separators.

The primary scientific goals of the mission are to discover new supermassive black holes and collapsed stars, to observe supernovae and gamma ray sources, and to map supernova remnants.

The launch of NuSTAR was originally expected to occur in 2008; however in 2006 the mission was cancelled due to budget constraints. In September 2007 it was reinstated, with launch scheduled for 2011. NuSTAR builds on research conducted using the High Energy Focusing Telescope, a high-altitude balloon experiment which demonstrated the technology which the spacecraft would employ.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25356.jpg)

The principal investigator is Professor Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology. The total cost of the NuSTAR mission is expected to come to $165 million, and the spacecraft is expected to operate for two years, potentially followed by an extended mission of up to three additional years.

The NuSTAR spacecraft is part of NASA's Small Explorer, or SMEX, programme, and is also designated SMEX-10. The Small Explorer programme is part of the wider Explorer programme; a series of scientific spacecraft which traces back to 1958, and the first American satellite, Explorer 1. NuSTAR will be the ninth Small Explorer to launch, and upon reaching orbit it will be given the designation Explorer 93.

The Explorer programme predates the formation of NASA; it was originally begun by the US Army in the 1950s, and subsequently transferred to NASA upon its formation. The first five missions were only known by Explorer designations, which were assigned before launch and as a result two launch failures, Explorer 2 and Explorer 5, were included in the sequence.

The first five spacecraft all carried magnetospheric experiments, and were built around the Sergeant upper stage of the Juno I carrier rocket. The last was launched on 24 August 1958.

Subsequent missions have carried various scientific payloads, using an array of different spacecraft configurations and launch systems. After Explorer 5, all Explorer spacecraft had at least one alternative name, used before launch, which was replaced with its Explorer designation after launch, unless the spacecraft failed to achieve orbit.

Explorer 55 was the last spacecraft to follow this practise, with subsequent missions being assigned Explorer designations, but not as their primary name, and the numerical designations are now rarely used.

Explorer designations are not assigned to missions flown as secondary instruments on other spacecraft, or flown using non-US spacecraft; for example Japan's Suzaku spacecraft is considered part of the programme, as are the CINDI instrument on the C/NOFS satellite, and the TWINS instruments on two NRO 'Improved Trumpet' ELINT satellites.

The launch of NuSTAR was the first flight of a Pegasus rocket since the 2008 deployment of the IBEX satellite. Overall, it was the forty-first flight of a Pegasus rocket, and the thirty-first flight of a Pegasus-XL. The rocket was designated M48, and was named Dalton after Dalton Watson, a friend of one of the engineers on the mission, who was killed in a road accident last year.

Developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation in the late 1980s, Pegasus is a three-stage air-launched all-solid expendable launch system. Dropped from an NB-52, Pegasus made its first flight in April 1990, successfully delivering the SECS and Pegsat satellites into orbit.

The stretched and more powerful Pegasus-XL first flew in June 1994, its maiden flight was intended to orbit the STEP-1 spacecraft, however it failed to achieve orbit.

Its second flight, carrying STEP-3, also failed, however in March 1996 the Pegasus-XL successfully placed REX-2 into orbit. In addition to stretched first and second stages, the Pegasus-XL introduced redesigned tail fins, allowing it to be launched from an L-1011 aircraft instead of a B-52. The revised fins were incorporated into the original Pegasus as the Pegasus-Hybrid, or Pegasus-H, which made four flights between 1995 and 2000.

The aircraft used to launch Pegasus-XL rockets is a Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar named 'Stargazer', which bears the aircraft registration N140SC, and the serial number 1067.

It made its first flight on 22 February 1974, and was delivered to Air Canada on 9 March of the same year for passenger service, with the registration C-FTNJ.

In February 1982 it was briefly leased to Air Lanka of Sri Lanka under the registration 4R-TNJ, returning to Air Canada and resuming its previous registration number at the end of the month. It was sold to Orbital Sciences in May 1992 to replace the NASA-operated NB-52B 'Balls 82 used for early Pegasus flights.

The first launch from Stargazer was the maiden flight of the Pegasus-XL, which took place on 27 June 1994; however the rocket failed to achieve orbit. The first successful launch from the aircraft came in April 1995, when a Pegasus-H was used to orbit Orbview-1, and two Orbcomm satellites.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25357.jpg)(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25358.jpg)

Launching from an aircraft means that the rocket does not need to travel through as much of the Earth's atmosphere before reaching space, and also allows a greater flexibility in terms of launch sites.

The launch of NuSTAR was the thirty-fifth from Stargazer, and the fourth from Kwajalein. In addition, twenty launches have been made with Stargazer flying from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, six from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, three from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and one from Gran Canaria Airport in the Canary Islands.

Most of the NB-52 launches took place from Edwards Air Force Base, except for one which used the Kennedy Space Center. Kwajalein has also served as a launch site for SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket, which made five launches from a pad on Omelek Island in the atoll.

Stargazer's crew boarded the aircraft about 140 minutes before launch, and begin preparations for flight. The aircraft's three Rolls-Royce RB211-524B engines were started between 130 and 80 minutes before launch, with the aircraft taxiing for takeoff approximately 75 minutes before the scheduled launch time. The aircraft took off approximately an hour before launch, flying out over the Pacific Ocean and climbing to an altitude of 11.9 kilometres (39,000 feet).

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25359.jpg)(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25360.jpg)

Once Stargazer reacheed the designated drop zone, and the countdown reached zero, the rocket was dropped from the aircraft. The release of the vehicle was recorded as the time of launch. Five seconds later, its first stage ignited and the vehicle pitched up to begin its ascent to orbit.

The first stage of the Pegasus-XL is an ATK Orion-50SXL, which burns hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) solid propellant, and also houses the wings and tail fins used to control the vehicle during atmospheric flight.

The first stage burned for approximately 71 seconds, before separating fifteen seconds after burnout.

Around 92.05 seconds after first stage burnout, the second stage, an Orion-50XL, ignited. Like the first stage, the second stage burns HTPB, and it fires for 72.75 seconds.

During the second stage burn, 128.3 seconds after launch, the payload fairing separated from around the NuSTAR satellite. When the second stage burned out, the mission entered a coast phase lasting approximately six minutes, 21 seconds.

During this coast phase, the second stage separated, with third stage ignition coming at the end, nine minutes and six seconds into the mission.

The third stage of the Pegasus-XL is an Orion-38, which also burns HTPB. It burned for sixty-eight seconds, inserting itself and NuSTAR into low Earth orbit, with powered flight ending ten minutes and 14 seconds after the mission began.

The Pegasus placed NuSTAR into a circular orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometres, with six degrees of inclination.

Following spacecraft separation, which happened shortly after third stage burnout, the spent stage will perform a series of collision avoidance manoeuvres; two 90 degree turns five minutes apart to attain a retrograde orientation, followed by firing its aft thrusters to depletion, lowering its orbit. The collision avoidance manoeuvres will begin three seconds after NuSTAR has been deployed.

NuSTAR, meanwhile, will stabilise itself, deploy its solar array, and make first contact with the ground via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). The mission will then enter a checkout and calibration phase; testing instruments and deploying its mast.

Checkout and calibration is expected to last 23 days. Finally, a known astronomical object will be used to align and calibrate the telescopes. The Crab nebula or quasar 3C273 will be used for this purpose.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25361.jpg)(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25362.jpg)

The launch of NuSTAR was the only Pegasus launch in 2012. The next launch of a Pegasus is expected in January 2013, when another Pegasus-XL will launch from Vandenberg, carrying the IRIS satellite; the next scheduled Explorer mission.

The NuSTAR launch is also the first orbital launch to be conducted by Orbital Sciences this year, their next launch is expected to be the maiden flight of the Antares rocket in August, carrying three PhoneSat spacecraft.[/size]

ЦитироватьПараметры орбиты аппарата составляют 632,8 x 626,9 км х 6,024 град.

(http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0g938FV9a73ea/610x.jpg)

Охотник за черными дырами

В космос отправился телескоп NuSTAR

Вечером 13 июня 2012 года в космос после нескольких задержек отправился аппарат NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array - Ядерный спектроскопический массив телескопов). Целью этой орбитальной обсерватории станет изучение космического пространства в рентгеновском диапазоне с беспрецедентной точностью. С легкой руки СМИ NuSTAR уже получил прозвище "охотника за черными дырами".

ЦитироватьНемного истории

Земная атмосфера для рентгеновского излучения (то есть в диапазоне энергий фотонов от 0,1 до 100 килоэлектронвольт) не прозрачна, поэтому первые наблюдения за космическими объектами в этом диапазоне начали проводиться только в конце 40-х - начале 50-х годов прошлого века (хотя первые работы в этом направлении проводились еще в 20-е годы прошлого века). Тогда появилась подходящие ракетные технологии, позволявшие поднять детекторы на достаточно большую высоту - первые рентгеновские фотоны из космоса встречаются на высоте 30 километров. Объектом первых исследований было Солнце.

Новый тип астрономии почти сразу зарекомендовал себя на отлично. Собранные учеными данные подтвердили так называемую теорию горячей солнечной короны. Оказалось, что температура верхних слоев атмосферы звезды как минимум на два порядка выше температуры расположенной под ними хромосферы и достигает нескольких миллионов градусов. Ученым также удалось разобраться со спектром рентгеновского излучения Солнца - оказалось, что он состоит из двух частей: непрерывной, обусловленной излучением короны, и линейчатой, связанной с излучением высокоионизованных тяжелых ионов. И все эти данные удалось получить благодаря исследованию диапазона, в котором сосредоточено менее миллионной части всего солнечного излучения.

В 60-х годах прошлого века Солнце все еще оставалось основным объектом исследования рентгеновской обсерватории, однако, ученые стали приглядываться и к другим небесным телам. Ни о каких удаленных объектах они, конечно, не помышляли - бытовало убеждение, что существующая на тот момент техника просто не зарегистрирует никакого излучения из космоса, - однако решили обратиться к Луне. Дело в том, что земной спутник подвергается постоянной бомбардировке космическими лучами. Как следствие, его поверхность излучает, и именно это излучение в 1962 году отправилась изучать ракета Aerobee 150, в итоге обнаружившая первый рентгеновский источник вне Солнечной системы - X-1 в созвездии Скорпиона (это оказался компактный объект, поглощающий материю акреционного диска). За это открытие Риккардо Джаккони получил Нобелевскую премию по физике в 2002 году.

В 70-х годах основными инструментами изучения рентгеновского излучения все еще оставались аэростаты и ракеты, однако постепенно стали появляться первые орбитальные аппараты, предназначенные исключительно для наблюдения за космическим пространством в соответствующем диапазоне. Новаторами в этой области были американцы. Именно они запустили первый орбитальный телескоп Uhuru (известный также как SAS-1) в 1970 году. Находясь на орбите со средней высотой около 540 километров, аппарат наблюдал за космическим пространство в целом. Впервые у астрофизиков в руках оказалась подробная карта наблюдений космического пространства в рентгеновском диапазоне.

............

http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2012/06/14/nustar/

Телескоп-матрешка
Уникальный рентгеновский телескоп NuSTAR запущен NASA в космос

Уникальная рентгеновская обсерватория NuSTAR запущена NASA в космос: она будет изучать черные дыры, остатки вспышек сверхновых и другие загадочные объекты Вселенной.

ЦитироватьВ отличие от других космических обсерваторий NASA, NuSTAR отправилась в космос отнюдь не с мыса Канаверал и не с помощью одной ракеты-носителя. Свой старт обсерватория приняла, находясь на борту самолета Stargazer, который оторвался от Земли с атолла Кваджалейн на Маршалловых островах. После этого с борта самолета была выпущена ракета-носитель Pegasus XL – она-то и вывела NuSTAR в космос. К настоящему моменту аппарат уже успешно вышел на заданную орбиту.

Название телескопа NuSTAR – это сокращение от английского название Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array – «массив ядерных спектроскопических телескопов». Обсерватория состоит из двух телескопов, расположенных на одной оси.

Фокусное расстояние телескопа составляет 10 метров, что является беспрецедентно большой величиной для рентгеновских телескопов.

Этот показатель будет достигнут за счет специальной раздвижной фермы, которая уже в космосе сможет разнести два телескопа друг от друга на такое расстояние.

В большинстве своем рентгеновские лучи не отражаются от поверхности зеркала, а поглощаются. Достичь отражения и отправить отраженный сигнал на детектор можно несколькими способами. Большинство предыдущих рентгеновских телескопов использовало принцип кодирующей апертуры, основанный на том, что источники излучения в разных положениях относительно маски, состоящей из прозрачных и непрозрачных элементов, создают на приемнике излучения различную конфигурацию теней. Недостаток таких систем состоит в том, что поток источника излучения «размазывается» практически на весь приемник, что значительно увеличивает влияние шумов приемника на чувствительность прибора.

Создатели телескопа NuSTAR пошли по другому пути, который был апробирован ими в 2005 году в ходе эксперимента HEFT, когда в верхние слои атмосферы на воздушном шаре был запущен рентгеновский детектор.

У этого подхода есть два основных принципа. Первый заключается в том, чтобы отправлять сигнал на зеркала под небольшим углом – это увеличивает вероятность того, что излучение будет отражено, а не поглотится. Второй принцип – использование системы зеркал, вложенных друг в друга, как матрешка. Причем зеркала для телескопа NuSTAR имеют вид не «тарелки», как для телескопов, работающих в оптике или в радио, а представляют собой набор тонких цилиндров. Одна из поясняющих фотографий на сайте NuSTAR демонстрирует рабочий телескоп обсерватории, состоящий из 133 вложенных друг в друга зеркальных цилиндров, каждый толщиной с человеческий ноготь. Данная фотография называется NuSTAR's Russian Doll-like Mirrors – «зеркала телескопа NuSTAR, подобные матрешке».

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25429.jpg)

В такой системе излучение от источника проецируется на небольшую часть детектора, поэтому влияние его шумов на несколько порядков меньше, чем при использовании принципа кодирующей апертуры.

Подобный метод фокусировки изображения в рентгеновской астрономии использовался только в диапазоне до энергий порядка 10 кэВ (например, на спутниках «Чандра» и «XMM-Ньютон»). Специалисты отмечают, что использование таких систем на энергиях почти в 10 раз выше (NuSTAR будет работать в диапазоне 5–80 кэВ, в котором из действующих обсерваторий работают INTEGRAL и SWIFT) – это огромный прорыв. К тому же NuSTAR будет обладать угловым разрешением всего в 9,5 угловой секунды, что в 75 раз лучше, чем у INTEGRAL, то есть кроме хороших изображений спутник будет строить и спектры с существенным разрешением. Правда, негативным побочным эффектом при этом будет сужение поля зрения.

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25430.jpg)

Сравнительный график эффективной площади телескопа в зависимости от энергии квантов для обсерваторий NuSTAR, «Чандра» и «XMM–Ньютон» // arXiv: 1008.1362 // "Троицкий вариант"

Стоит отметить, что разработка телескопа началась в 2005 году, параллельно с реализацией эксперимента HEFT, но в 2007 году из-за сокращения бюджета NASA на научные программы проект был закрыт.

Впрочем, ненадолго: уже в том же году учёные возобновили работу над телескопом.

«Мы очень ждали запуска этой обсерватории. С ее беспрецедентным пространственным и спектральным разрешением по отношению к предыдущим исследованиям этой области рентгеновского спектра, NuSTAR откроет новое окно во Вселенной и дополнит своими данными результаты таких значимых миссий, как «Ферми», «Чандра», «Хаббл» и «Спитцер», – заявил Пол Хертц, директор отделения астрофизики NASA.

После вывода на орбиту обсерватории понадобится около месяца для настройки и проверки работоспособности всех систем. Затем NuSTAR в течение примерно 18 месяцев будет выполнять свою основную научную программу.

«За это время NuSTAR поможет нам найти самые неуловимые и наиболее мощные по энергетике черные дыры, помочь нам понять структуру Вселенной», – заявила научный руководитель проекта Фиона Харрисон из Калифорнийского технологического института.

Решать задачу по поиску черных дыр обсерватория будет, проводя регулярный обзор площадок неба (включая область центра Галактики) с максимальной чувствительностью. Также NuSTAR будет заниматься построением карт излучения радиоактивных элементов в молодых остатках вспышек сверхновых и изучением происхождения релятивистских струй частиц, вылетающих из сверхмассивных черных дыр.

Оставшееся после выполнения миссии время (5–6 месяцев) телескоп будет решать дополнительные задачи. Их список постоянно уточняется, но предполагается, что в рамках этой части работы NuSTAR сможет больше узнать о происхождении космических лучей, исследовать физику экстремальных состояний вещества у компактных объектов в нашей Галактике и даже проводить картографирование микровспышек на Солнце.

Лишь через пять лет спутник должен сгореть в плотных слоях атмосферы. Поэтому есть вероятность продления работы обсерватории NuSTAR с двух лет на больший срок.

http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2012/06/14_a_4625629.shtml

ЦитироватьThe NuSTAR team is getting ready to deploy its school bus-sized mast, tomorrow June 21 at 10:40 a.m. Pacific Time (1:40 p.m. Eastern)

Цитировать(4 часа назад)
The mast deployment takes about 26 minutes. See animation at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=80521

ЦитироватьNuSTAR team preps for mast deployment at Caltech's science operations center. Mission control is at UC Berkeley.

(http://s003.radikal.ru/i204/1206/3a/4fce8a7164e2.jpg) (http://s001.radikal.ru/i195/1206/93/dec526b0af0d.jpg)

ЦитироватьThe mast has deployed! We are on our way to getting the best views yet of high-energy X-rays in our universe!

NuSTAR Mission Status Report: Observatory Unfurls its Unique Mast

June 21, 2012

ЦитироватьPASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has successfully deployed its lengthy mast, giving it the ability to see the highest energy X-rays in our universe. The mission is one step closer to beginning its hunt for black holes hiding in our Milky Way and other galaxies.

"It's a real pleasure to know that the mast, an accomplished feat of engineering, is now in its final position," said Yunjin Kim, the NuSTAR project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Kim was also the project manager for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which flew a similar mast on the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 2000 and made topographic maps of Earth.

NuSTAR's mast is one of several innovations allowing the telescope to take crisp images of high-energy X-rays for the first time. It separates the telescope mirrors from the detectors, providing the distance needed to focus the X-rays. Built by ATK Aerospace Systems in Goleta, Calif., this is the first deployable mast ever used on a space telescope.

On June 21 at 10:43 a.m. PDT (1:43 p.m. EDT), nine days after launch, engineers at NuSTAR's mission control at UC Berkeley in California sent a signal to the spacecraft to start extending the 33-foot (10-meter) mast, a stable, rigid structure consisting of 56 cube-shaped units. Driven by a motor, the mast steadily inched out of a canister as each cube was assembled one by one. The process took about 26 minutes. Engineers and astronomers cheered seconds after they received word from the spacecraft that the mast was fully deployed and secure.

The NuSTAR team will now begin to verify the pointing and motion capabilities of the satellite, and fine-tune the alignment of the mast. In about five days, the team will instruct NuSTAR to take its "first light" pictures, which are used to calibrate the telescope.

Why did NuSTAR need such a long, arm-like structure? The answer has to do with the fact that X-rays behave differently than the visible light we see with our eyes. Sunlight easily reflects off surfaces, giving us the ability to see the world around us in color. X-rays, on the other hand, are not readily reflected: they either travel right through surfaces, as is the case with skin during medical X-rays, or they tend to be absorbed, by substances like your bone, for example. To focus X-rays onto the detectors at the back of a telescope, the light must hit mirrors at nearly parallel angles; if they were to hit head-on, they would be absorbed instead of reflected.

On NuSTAR, this is accomplished with two barrels of nested mirrors, each containing 133 shells, which reflect the X-rays to the back of the telescope. Because the reflecting angle is so shallow, the distance between the mirrors and the detectors is long. This is called the focal length, and it is maintained by NuSTAR's mast.

The fully extended mast is too large to launch in the lower-cost rockets required for relatively inexpensive Small Explorer class missions like NuSTAR. Instead NuSTAR launched on its Orbital Science Corporation's Pegasus rocket tucked inside a small canister. This rocket isn't as expensive as its bigger cousins because it launches from the air, with the help of a carrier plane, the L-1011 "Stargazer," also from Orbital.

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and managed by JPL 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.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-183

ЦитироватьТелескоп NuSTAR успешно выдвинул уникальную10-метровую антенну[/size]

Космический рентгеновский телескоп NuSTAR, предназначенный для поиска и исследования черных дыр, нейтронных звезд и гамма-всплесков, а также изучения Солнца, успешно выдвинул уникальную десятиметровую антенну с рентгеновской оптикой, примерно через пять дней телескоп увидит "первый свет", сообщает НАСА.

Проект NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), общая стоимость которого составляет 180 миллионов долларов, призван заполнить "лакуну" в потоке данных, поступающих с других рентгеновских обсерваторий, таких, как "Чандра" и XMM-Newton. Новый телескоп будет работать в диапазоне рентгеновского излучения высокой энергии, причем в этом диапазоне он будет иметь чувствительность в 100 раз выше и пространственное разрешение в десять раз лучше, чем все другие рентгеновские телескопы.

В отличие от видимого излучения, рентгеновские лучи могут отражаться только под очень небольшими углами, поэтому рентгеновские зеркала должны располагаться почти параллельно лучам. Чтобы сфокусировать лучи, рентгеновские телескопы требуют очень большого расстояния между детекторами и зеркалами. Аппарат для запуска надо было "упаковать" в очень небольшую ракету Pegasus, поэтому было решено разместить зеркала на выдвижной десятиметровой мачте, которую разработала компания ATK Aerospace Systems.

На конце мачты размещены два цилиндрических блока, каждый из которых содержит 133 вложенных друга в друга зеркала, которые будут отражать излучение к детекторам в основном корпусе аппарата.

Накануне вечером, спустя девять дней после запуска, специалисты из центра управления в университете Калифорнии в Беркли послали на борт обсерватории команду на выдвижение мачты, состоящей из 56 кубических секций. В процессе выдвижения "кубики" друг за другом автоматически собирались и выдвигались из аппарата. Процесс занял 26 минут, после чего "Земля" получила с орбиты подтверждение, что мачта выдвинута полностью и находится в штатном положении.

Команда NuSTAR теперь начнет проверять системы ориентации и стабилизации аппарата. Примерно через пять дней ученые рассчитывают получить первые снимки, которые будут использованы для калибровки телескопа.

Космический телескоп NuSTAR был запущен 13 июня с помощью ракеты Pegasus XL, стартовавшей с самолета-носителя L-1011 Stargazer ("Звездочет") на высоте 11,9 тысячи метров над акваторией Тихого океана. Через десять минут после старта ракета вышла на орбиту с апогеем (высшей точкой) 632,8 километра, перигеем 626,9 километра, и наклонением 6,024 градуса. Здесь 350-килограммовый космический аппарат отделился от третьей ступени и начал самостоятельный полет.

http://ria.ru/science/20120622/679098366.html

РИА-РИА, эгегей! Это не антенна. А где антенны, НАСА не скрывает :lol:

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/66339.jpg)

Уже исправили :lol:

В этой конструкции меня удивляет следующее -- как смогли добиться нужной жёсткости каркаса при наблюдениях (хоть и рентгеновский телескоп, но юстировка тоже нуждается в поддержании), и насколько велик предел прочности прие переориентации телескопа? Момент сил получается не слабенький...

ЦитироватьAnother milestone: our X-ray detectors have been successfully turned on!

https://twitter.com/NASANuSTAR

NuSTAR Mission Status Report

ЦитироватьAfter deploying its mast, the NuSTAR observatory began a series of checkout procedures. The procedures include measuring the alignment of all the components of the spacecraft systems that determine the pointing direction of the telescope, and bringing the X-ray digital cameras online. The team tuned up the spacecraft so that the long telescope can be pointed accurately at different locations in the sky, and they are completing the process of making the pointing direction accurate.

The X-ray digital cameras were turned on so that the team can tune up their performance. The cameras are operating well. A calibration source was inserted in the field, and it has been determined that the cameras are accurately measuring the energy of incoming X-rays. The team is preparing for the first-light images on Thursday.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .
 
Written by NuSTAR Principal Investigator Fiona Harrison
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120627.html

Первые снимки пошли

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120628.html

(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/25652.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15804.html)

ЦитироватьКосмический телескоп NuSTAR открыл "глаза"[/size]

Космический рентгеновский телескоп NuSTAR, предназначенный для поиска и исследования черных дыр, нейтронных звезд и гамма-всплесков, а также изучения Солнца, впервые включил свои детекторы и сделал первые снимки, сообщает Лаборатория реактивного движения НАСА.
Проект NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), общая стоимость которого составляет 180 миллионов долларов, призван заполнить "лакуну" в потоке данных, поступающих с других рентгеновских обсерваторий, таких как "Чандра" и XMM-Newton. Новый телескоп будет работать в диапазоне рентгеновского излучения высокой энергии, причем в этом диапазоне он будет иметь чувствительность в 100 раз выше и пространственное разрешение в десять раз лучше, чем все другие рентгеновские телескопы.
Первой "мишенью" для телескопа стал источник рентгеновского излучения в созвездии Лебедя - Лебедь X-1 (Cyg X-1). Это один из ярчайших источников рентгеновского излучения на небе, который представляет собой черную дыру, находящуюся в нашей галактике, примерно в 6 тысячах световых лет от Солнца. Рентгеновское излучение Cyg X-1 возникает за счет разогрева потоков газа, которые тянутся от голубого сверхгиганта HDE 226868 к черной дыре, вместе с которой они образуют двойную звезду.
"Сегодня мы получили первое сфокусированное изображение Вселенной в рентгеновском диапазоне высокой энергии. Это как надеть новую пару очков и увидеть мир вокруг настолько ясно, как будто видишь его впервые", - говорит научный руководитель проекта Фиона Харрисон (Fiona Harrison) из Калифорнийского технологического института.
На снимке рентгеновский источник предстал в виде точечного объекта, а не в виде размытого пятна, как на снимках с других телескопов.
В следующие две недели ученые продолжат калибровку нового телескопа с помощью наблюдений еще двух хорошо известных рентгеновских источников. Это G21.5-0.9 - остаток взрыва сверхновой, произошедшего несколько тысячи лет назад в нашей галактике, и квазар 3C273, расположенный в центре другой галактики в 2 миллиардах лет от нас.
Ряд других телескопов - американские "Свифт" и "Чандра" и европейский XMM-Newton - будут наблюдать 3C273 одновременно с NuSTAR, чтобы помочь его откалибровать.
Космический телескоп NuSTAR был запущен 13 июня с помощью ракеты Pegasus XL, стартовавшей с самолета-носителя L-1011 Stargazer ("Звездочет") на высоте 11,9 тысячи метров над акваторией Тихого океана. Через десять минут после старта ракета вышла на орбиту с апогеем (высшей точкой) 632,8 километра, перигеем 626,9 километра и наклонением 6,024 градуса. Здесь 350-килограммовый космический аппарат отделился от третьей ступени и начал самостоятельный полет.
Как ожидается, телескоп проработает на орбите как минимум два года.

http://ria.ru/science/20120629/688296684.html

Ступенька нашлась:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27418.msg934208#msg934208

Marshalls concerned as booster rocket washed up on island

ЦитироватьMAJURO — A booster rocket from an airborne launch from the U.S. Army's missile testing range at Kwajalein in June washed up at Mili Atoll last week, prompting the Marshall Islands government to ask the United States government to remove the large object.

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The "stage one" motor from the Pegasus rocket that propelled NASA's NuSTAR satellite into orbit more than a month ago was expected to sink when it fell back to Earth from an altitude of nearly 40 miles. The booster rocket was attached to an airplane that took off from Kwajalein in mid-June for the highly publicized launching of the sophisticated research satellite that is being used by NASA to study black holes in space.

The Sea Patrol's Lomor patrol vessel was dispatched at the weekend to check out the rocket that was found at Jelbon Island, the southernmost part of Mili, according to Internal Affairs Minister Wilbur Heine, who represents Mili in the parliament and traveled with Lomor to inspect the surprise visitor. "It beached on the ocean side of the island and was discovered by local residents," Heine said. "The residents radioed Majuro and I contacted Lomor to organize an investigation to confirm what drifted ashore." The Lomor returned to Majuro Monday.

"We sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. Embassy asking them to send a team of experts to determine if the missile presents any harm to the environment, and to remove it," said Foreign Minister Phillip Muller earlier this week.

On Wednesday, in response to an inquiry from the local newspaper, the U.S. Embassy in Majuro issued a U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll statement saying, "it appears to be the 'stage one' motor of the Pegasus XL launch vehicle from a test conducted at the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in June 2012."

The stage one motor is part of a Pegasus booster rocket system that was attached to the underbelly of a jet airplane that took off from Kwajalein in June. The booster detached from the plane in the upper atmosphere and then propelled the Pegasus and its NuSTAR payload into a low-Earth orbit.

The stage one motor is a solid rocket booster that propels the Pegasus to about 200,000 feet then burns out and falls as planned into the broad ocean area and normally sinks upon splashdown, said the Army. "As verified from Reagan Test Site monitoring of the mission, the component landed in the predicted drop area in the open ocean approximately 300 miles from Mili Atoll, apparently drifting for some amount of time before coming ashore on Mili Atoll," the statement said.

There have been more than 40 Pegasus launches over the years from various locations including Kwajalein, the Army said.

Earlier coordinated environmental reviews determined the Pegasus XL launch does not present a significant impact to human health or the environment, the Army said.

The photos of the equipment that washed up in Mili "show that the components worked, all fuel oxidized and there should be no risk to personnel," the Army said. "However, due to the size and condition of the metal and the possibility for spent solid booster residue remaining on the debris, it is recommended that all individuals stay away from this debris until it is retrieved. Avoiding contact with this component will prevent any possibility of injury that could result from direct handling of the weathered metal or skin contact with the solid booster residue."

The Army said it is working with the U.S. Embassy and the Marshalls government "to develop appropriate response actions."

http://www.mvariety.com/regional-news/palaupacific-news/48351-marshalls-concerned-as-booster-rocket-washed-up-on-island.php

NuSTAR Mission Status Report

ЦитироватьNASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) passed its Post-Launch Assessment Review at JPL this week, clearing the way for the mission to enter into its science operations phase in the next month. NuSTAR is currently in the final stages of "Phase C/D," or the design and development phase, which included building and testing the flight hardware, launch and early operations (e.g., spacecraft checkout, mast deployment, instrument commissioning and calibrations). In August, NuSTAR will enter "Phase E," or the operations phase, meaning that it will primarily gather science data.

Since obtaining its first-light images of the galactic black hole Cygnus X-1 on June 28, NuSTAR has been observing bright X-ray sources across the sky as part of the instrument commissioning. Last week, the mission participated in a major international cross-calibration campaign where NuSTAR and NASA's Chandra and Swift telescopes, together with INTEGRAL, Suzaku, and XMM-Newton, observed the quasar 3C 273 in concert. Quasar 3C 273, an extremely bright high-energy source at a distance of 2.4 billion light years, is the first quasar ever to be identified and is the optically brightest quasar in the sky. The coordinated observations of this bright, variable source will allow X-ray satellites to accurately measure their relative sensitivities and to conduct science investigations with joint data sets.

One example of a joint science observation took place between July 21 and 24. NuSTAR observed the supermassive black hole that resides at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy as part of a large, multi-wavelength campaign. This supermassive black hole, our closest example, is known as Sagittarius A* and weighs approximately 4 million times as much as the sun. NuSTAR obtained high-energy X-ray data on Sagittarius A*, complementing coordinated infrared images obtained with the Keck telescopes, low-energy X-ray data obtained with Chandra, and very high-energy gamma-ray data obtained with the High-Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS). These data will monitor the flickering of Sagittarius A* as it grows by accreting matter, thereby teaching astronomers about the extreme environments around black holes and the physics of black hole growth.

Soon, NuSTAR will begin its hunt for hidden black holes in our galaxy and beyond. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/ .

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120727.html

NuSTAR Celebrates First 100 Days

Цитировать(https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/27101.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia15816.html)

Tomorrow, Sept. 21, 2012, will mark 100 days since NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, launched into space from the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft. Since completing its 30-day checkout, the telescope has been busy making its first observations of black holes, super-dense dead stars and the glowing remains of exploded stars.

In this early mission phase, the NuSTAR team has been getting to know their telescope better and learning how to point it precisely at targets of interest. NuSTAR has the longest mast of any astronomical telescope ever launched. The 33-foot (10-meter) flexible structure is part of the mission's innovative design, allowing NuSTAR to focus high-energy X-rays into sharp images for the first time. The team has been spending time understanding the mast's mechanics and how they affect the telescope's pointing.

In addition, NuSTAR has continued to team up with other observatories, including NASA's Chandra and Swift telescopes, to make coordinated observations. These joint observations allow astronomers to interpret data from their telescopes more precisely, and to gain a better overall understanding of some of the most extreme events in the cosmos.

As its journey continues, NuSTAR will explore many more targets in our galaxy and beyond.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120920.html

NASA's NuSTAR Spots Flare From Milky Way's Black Hole

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia16214.html

October 23, 2012
            PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's newest set of X-ray eyes in the sky, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), has caught its first look at the giant black hole parked at the center of our galaxy. The observations show the typically mild-mannered black hole during the middle of a flare-up.

 "We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. "These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."

 The new images can be seen by visiting: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .

 NuSTAR, launched June 13, is the only telescope capable of producing focused images of the highest-energy X-rays. For two days in July, the telescope teamed up with other observatories to observe Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), the name astronomers give to a compact radio source at the center of the Milky Way. Observations show a massive black hole lies at this location. Participating telescopes included NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images.

 Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.

 In the case of NuSTAR, its state-of-the-art telescope is picking up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) and originating from regions wh ere particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.

 "Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them," said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-333

NuSTAR помог астрофизикам увидеть вспышку в Стрельце

Телескоп NuSTAR сфотографировал вспышку, источником которого была черная дыра Стрелец А* в центре Млечного Пути. Об этом сообщается (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia16214.html) на официальном сайте Американского космического агентства. Снимки были сделаны еще в июле, однако обработали и опубликовали их только сейчас. По словам исследователей, аппарат стал первым, кому удалось экспериментально получить данные о жестком рентгеновском излучении во время такого рода вспышек. Источником излучения является разогнанная до околосветовых скоростей и разогретая до сотен миллионов градусов Цельсия материя, которую поглощает дыра. Сами ученые говорят, что подобные вспышки для Стрельца довольно редки, поэтому их обнаружение является большой удачей.
 Телескоп NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array - Ядерный спектроскопический массив телескопов) был запущен в космос 13 июня 2012 года. Телескоп был создан в рамках программы SMEX, которая подразумевает производство относительно недорогих (менее 120 миллионов долларов), но специализированных приборов.
 Цель NuSTAR изучение космических объектов в рентгеновском диапазоне. Речь идет о фотонах с энергий от 7 до 80 килоэлектронвольт, что на порядок выше предшественников, работавших преимущественно с мягким рентгеновским излучением. Аппарат снабжен парой зеркал Вольтера, работающих по принципу скользящего отражения. Использование такого рода зеркал позволяет добиться разрешения на два порядка выше, чем у любых других систем, работающих в этом диапазоне. Подробно о принципах работы телескопа и его устройстве "Лента.ру" уже писала (http://lenta.ru/articles/2012/06/14/nustar/).
 Компактный астрономический объект, получивший название Стрелец А* и расположенный в одноименном созвездии, был открыт в 1974 году. В 2000 году многолетние наблюдения позволили физикам с уверенностью заявить, что этот объект - сверхмассивная черная дыра, расположенная на расстоянии примерно 26 тысяч световых лет от Земли в центре Млечного Пути. Ее масса составляет около 4 миллионов солнечных.

http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/10/24/nustar/

NASA's NuSTAR Catches Black Holes in Galaxy Web
01.07.13

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PASADENA, Calif. -NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, set its X-ray eyes on a spiral galaxy and caught the brilliant glow of two black holes lurking inside.

The new image is being released Monday along with NuSTAR's view of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

"These new images showcase why NuSTAR is giving us an unprecedented look at the cosmos," said Lou Kaluzienski, NuSTAR program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. "With NuSTAR's greater sensitivity and imaging capability, we're getting a wealth of new information on a wide array of cosmic phenomena in the high-energy X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum."

Launched last June, NuSTAR is the first orbiting telescope with the ability to focus high-energy X-ray light. It can view objects in considerably greater detail than previous missions operating at similar wavelengths. Since launch, the NuSTAR team has been fine-tuning the telescope, which includes a mast the length of a school bus connecting the mirrors and detectors.

The mission has looked at a range of extreme, high-energy objects already, including black holes near and far, and the incredibly dense cores of dead stars. In addition, NuSTAR has begun black hole searches in the inner region of the Milky Way galaxy and in distant galaxies in the universe.

Among the telescope's targets is the spiral galaxy IC342, also known as Caldwell 5, featured in one of the two new images. This galaxy lies 7 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis (the Giraffe). Previous X-ray observations of the galaxy fr om NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed the presence of two blinding black holes, called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs).

How ULXs can shine so brilliantly is an ongoing mystery in astronomy. While these black holes are not as powerful as the supermassive black hole at the hearts of galaxies, they are more than 10 times brighter than the stellar-mass black holes peppered among the stars in our own galaxy. Astronomers think ULXs could be less common intermediate-mass black holes, with a few thousand times the mass of our sun, or smaller stellar-mass black holes in an unusually bright state. A third possibility is that these black holes don't fit neatly into either category.

"High-energy X-rays hold a key to unlocking the mystery surrounding these objects," said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Whether they are massive black holes, or there is new physics in how they feed, the answer is going to be fascinating."

In the image, the two bright spots that appear entangled in the arms of the IC342 galaxy are the black holes. High-energy X-ray light has been translated into the color magenta, while the galaxy itself is shown in visible light.

"Before NuSTAR, high-energy X-ray pictures of this galaxy and the two black holes would be so fuzzy that everything would appear as one pixel," said Harrison.

The second image features the well-known, historical supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The color blue indicates the highest-energy X-ray light seen by NuSTAR, while red and green signify the lower end of NuSTAR's energy range. The blue region is where the shock wave from the supernova blast is slamming into material surrounding it, accelerating particles to nearly the speed of light. As the particles speed up, they give off a type of light known as synchrotron radiation. NuSTAR will be able to determine for the first time how energetic the particles are, and address the mystery of what causes them to reach such great speeds.

"Cas A is the poster child for studying how massive stars explode and also provides us a clue to the origin of the high-energy particles, or cosmic rays, that we see here on Earth," said Brian Grefenstette of Caltech, a lead researcher on the observations. "With NuSTAR, we can study wh ere, as well as how, particles are accelerated to such ultra-relativistic energies in the remnant left behind by the supernova explosion."

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20130107.html

Телескопом получены изображения галактики IC342 (Caldwell 5), благодаря которым можно подробнее изучить две черных дыры внутри галактики, эти ч.д. являются сверхмощными источниками рентгеновского излучения.
Также получены изобр. остатков взрыва сверхновой Кассиопея А.

NASA Hosts Media Teleconference About Black Hole Studies

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news teleconference at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST), Wednesday, Feb. 27, to announce black hole observations from its newest X-ray telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope.

 The briefing participants are:

 -- Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
 -- Guido Risaliti, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass., and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics
 -- Arvind Parmar, head of Astrophysics and Fundamental Physics Missions Division, European Space Agency

 Visuals will be posted at the start of the teleconference on NASA's NuSTAR site: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar (http://www.nasa.gov/nustar) .

 Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's website at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio (http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio) .

 Audio and visuals will be streamed live online at: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 (http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2) .

 For more information about NuSTAR, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar (http://www.nasa.gov/nustar) . For more information about the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/XMM-Newton_overview (http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/XMM-Newton_overview) .

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-071

http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/telecon20130227.html

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Ученые выяснили, как вращаются черные дыры

МОСКВА, 27 фев — РИА Новости. Американский орбитальный телескоп NuSTAR изучил сверхмассивную черную дыру в галактике NGC1365 и получил данные сверхвысокого разрешения, позволившие астрономам очень точно вычислить скорость и направление вращения подобных объектов, говорится в статье, опубликованной в журнале Nature.

Сверхмассивные черные дыры существуют в центре практически любой галактики. В отличие от черных дыр, возникающих при коллапсе звезд, их масса в несколько миллионов раз больше солнечной. Считается, что сверхмассивные черные дыры вращаются вокруг своей оси, и вычисление скорости вращения поможет понять, как формировались подобные объекты в ранней Вселенной.

Группа астрофизиков под руководством Фионы Харрисон (Fiona Harrison) из Калифорнийского технологического института в Пасадене (США) выяснила, что крупные черные дыры в центрах галактик вращаются с очень высокой скоростью, изучив данные, собранные орбитальной обсерваторией NuSTAR.

Как объясняют ученые, черные дыры крайне сложно изучать из-за их природы, препятствующей "побегу" света или материи из ближайших ее окрестностей. Поэтому астрофизики изучают их по искривлению пространства, которое возникает из-за огромной массы черной дыры. Эти искривления отражаются в спектре рентгеновского излучения, вырабатываемого в диске аккреции и в джете черной дыры, что позволяет вычислить ее массу, скорость вращения и другие параметры.

Хариссон и ее коллеги проанализировали спектр излучения ядра галактики NGC1365 в самой "верхней" части рентгеновского диапазона, объединив данные, полученные космическим телескопом NuSTAR и его "коллегой" XMM-Newton. Оказалось, что гигантская черная дыра массой в два миллиона солнц в центре NGC1365 вращается очень быстро, достигая 84% от максимально возможного значения угловой скорости.

Данное открытие ставит под сомнение возможность формирования таких черных дыр внутри гигантских облаков газа и пыли, что считалось одной из самых правдоподобных гипотез их развития. По их словам ученых, "разгон" черной дыры потребовал бы гигантской плотности газа, что невозможно из-за его быстрого разогрева излучением джета и последующего разрушения. По всей видимости, сверхмассивные черные дыры набирали массу "порциями", периодически поглощая относительно большие и плотные куски материи. Это и привело к их "разгону" до сверхвысоких скоростей, заключают астрономы.

http://ria.ru/science/20130227/924988754.html

Black Hole Naps Amidst Stellar Chaos
06.11.13

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The Sculptor galaxy is seen in a new light, in this composite image fr om NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU
 › Full image and caption (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/pia17244.html) › NuSTAR view only (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/754747main_B-N253-Xray.jpg) › See latest images (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/multimedia/index.html)
 
 Nearly a decade ago, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory caught signs of what appeared to be a black hole snacking on gas at the middle of the nearby Sculptor galaxy. Now, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees higher-energy X-ray light, has taken a peek and found the black hole asleep.
 "Our results imply that the black hole went dormant in the past 10 years," said Bret Lehmer of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Periodic observations with both Chandra and NuSTAR should tell us unambiguously if the black hole wakes up again. If this happens in the next few years, we hope to be watching." Lehmer is lead author of a new study detailing the findings in the Astrophysical Journal.

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The slumbering black hole is about 5 million times the mass of our sun. It lies at the center of the Sculptor galaxy, also known as NGC 253, a so-called starburst galaxy actively giving birth to new stars. At 13 million light-years away, this is one of the closest starbursts to our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
 The Milky Way is all around more quiet than the Sculptor galaxy. It makes far fewer new stars, and its behemoth black hole, about 4 million times the mass of our sun, is also snoozing.
 "Black holes feed off surrounding accretion disks of material. When they run out of this fuel, they go dormant," said co-author Ann Hornschemeier of Goddard. "NGC 253 is somewhat unusual because the giant black hole is asleep in the midst of tremendous star-forming activity all around it."
 The findings are teaching astronomers how galaxies grow over time. Nearly all galaxies are suspected to harbor supermassive black holes at their hearts. In the most massive of these, the black holes are thought to grow at the same rate that new stars form, until blasting radiation from the black holes ultimately shuts down star formation. In the case of the Sculptor galaxy, astronomers do not know if star formation is winding down or ramping up.
 "Black hole growth and star formation often go hand-in-hand in distant galaxies," said Daniel Stern, a co-author and NuSTAR project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "It's a bit surprising as to what's going on here, but we've got two powerful complementary X-ray telescopes on the case."
 Chandra first observed signs of what appeared to be a feeding supermassive black hole at the heart of the Sculptor galaxy in 2003. As material spirals into a black hole, it heats up to tens of millions of degrees and glows in X-ray light that telescopes like Chandra and NuSTAR can see.
 Then, in September and November of 2012, Chandra and NuSTAR observed the same region simultaneously. The NuSTAR observations -- the first-ever to detect focused, high-energy X-ray light from the region -- allowed the researchers to say conclusively that the black hole is not accreting material. NuSTAR launched into space in June of 2012.
 In other words, the black hole seems to have fallen asleep. Another possibility is that the black hole was not actually awake 10 years ago, and Chandra observed a different source of X-rays. Future observations with both telescopes may solve the puzzle.
 "The combination of coordinated Chandra and NuSTAR observations is extremely powerful for answering questions like this," said Lou Kaluzienski, NuSTAR Program Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, we can get all sides of the story."
 The observations also revealed a smaller, flaring object that the researchers were able to identify as an "ultraluminous X-ray source," or ULX. ULXs are black holes feeding off material from a partner star. They shine more brightly than typical stellar-mass black holes generated from dying stars, but are fainter and more randomly distributed than the supermassive black holes at the centers of massive galaxies. Astronomers are still working to understand the size, origins and physics of ULXs.
 "These stellar-mass black holes are bumping along near the center of this galaxy," said Hornschemeier. "They tend to be more numerous in areas wh ere there is more star-formation activity."
 If and when the Sculptor's slumbering giant does wake up in the next few years amidst all the commotion, NuSTAR and Chandra will monitor the situation. The team plans to check back on the system periodically.

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20130611.html

Телескоп NuSTAR обнаружил черную дыру, впавшую в "послеобеденный сон"

МОСКВА, 11 июн — РИА Новости. Черная дыра в одной из галактик в созвездии Скульптора, которая ранее активно поглощала межзвездный газ, теперь прекратила активность и впала в "послеобеденный сон", длящийся уже около десяти лет, свидетельствуют данные, полученные астрономами с помощью космического телескопа NuSTAR, говорится в сообщении НАСА.
"Заснувшая" черная дыра массой около 5 миллионов масс Солнца находится в центре активной галактики NGC 253 (известной также как "Серебряная монета"). В этой звездной системе, расположенной в 8 миллионах световых лет от Земли, процессы образования новых звезд идут с очень высокой скоростью.
Прежние наблюдения с рентгеновского телескопа "Чандра", проведенные в 2003 году, показали, что черная дыра активно поглощает газ. "Наши результаты свидетельствуют, что черная дыра уснула за последние десять лет. Периодические наблюдения с помощью телескопов "Чандра" и NuSTAR смогут сказать нам определенно, проснулась ли она вновь. Мы надеемся, что если она проснется в ближайшие несколько лет, мы сможем это увидеть", — сказал Брет Лэмер (Bret Lehmer) из Центра космических полетов имени Годдарда НАСА.
Ученые отмечают, что черные дыры в центрах галактик прекращают поглощать материю и впадают в спячку только тогда, когда в их окрестностях исчерпываются запасы "пищи". Черная дыра в NGC 253 необычна, потому что она "заснула" прямо во время активных процессов звездообразования, которые идут вокруг нее.
Серия одновременных наблюдений с помощью рентгеновского телескопа высокого разрешения NuSTAR и его "старшего коллеги" — "Чандры", проведенная в сентябре и ноябре 2012 года, позволила ученым достоверно установить, что черная дыра в галактике уже не поглощает материю.
Космический телескоп NuSTAR был запущен в июне 2012 года. Он находится на орбите высотой около 630 километров. Как ожидается, 350-килограммовый космический аппарат проработает на орбите как минимум два года. Телескоп работает в диапазоне рентгеновского излучения высокой энергии, причем он имеет чувствительность в 100 раз выше и пространственное разрешение в десять раз лучше, чем все другие рентгеновские телескопы.

http://ria.ru/science/20130611/942860433.html

The Turbulent, High-Energy Sky Is Keeping NuSTAR Busy

06.17.13

 Status Update
 NuSTAR has been busy studying the most energetic phenomena in the universe. Recently, a few high-energy events have sprung up, akin to "things that go bump in the night." When one telescope catches a sudden outpouring of high-energy light in the sky, NuSTAR and a host of other telescopes stop what they were doing and take a better look.
 For example, in early April, the blazar Markarian 421 had an episode of extreme activity, brightening by more than 50 times its typical level. Blazars are a special class of galaxies with accreting, or "feeding," supermassive black holes at their centers. As the black holes feed, they light up, often ejecting jets of material. When the jets are pointing toward Earth, they are called blazars. By using telescopes sensitive to a range of energies to study how blazars vary, astrophysicists gain insight into black hole feeding processes and the physical conditions near the black hole.
 NuSTAR got lucky in the case of Markarian 421, because it was already observing the blazar at the time of its eruption, simultaneously with other telescopes, including NASA's Fermi and Swift satellites. The flare-up was the brightest ever observed for this object. In fact, it was so bright that NuSTAR and other telescopes changed their observing cadence to spend more time studying this galaxy. More on these findings will be available after the scientists have analyzed the data and published papers.
 Just a few weeks after this event, towards the end of April, NASA's Swift satellite noticed the region around the center of our own Milky Way galaxy had suddenly lit up. Flares lasting from a few minutes to three hours are not uncommon for the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*. In fact, NuSTAR observed such a flare last July (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20121023.html (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20121023.html)). However, this new event had lasted tens of hours and got the whole high-energy community excited. NuSTAR was one of the first "on the scene," observing the galactic center less than 50 hours after the initial Swift discovery. The NuSTAR findings revealed that the brightening was due to a type of neutron star called a magnetar, and not Sagittarius A* itself. The results were written up and accepted in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
 Yet another event popped up in the sky just a few days later, surprising astronomers. Swift found an extremely bright gamma-ray burst, brighter than any event it had previously identified during its nearly 10 years in orbit. A gamma-ray burst is a huge release of energy from a distant galaxy, thought to be triggered by the collapse of a massive star.
 The astronomical community, including NuSTAR, quickly reacted to the blast. NuSTAR provided the first focused, high-quality observations of a gamma-ray burst in high-energy X-rays.
 Beginning in April, the NuSTAR spacecraft gained use of the Kongsberg Satellite Services' Singapore tracking station for extra command uplinks and data downlinks. The spacecraft's primary tracking coverage is provided by the Italian Space Agency and uses antennas located in Malindi, Kenya, while data uplinks are provided by NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) antennas. The back-up Singapore tracking station is helpful for periods when additional coverage is needed either due to high data-rate targets, such as bright objects, or when the Malindi antennas are unavailable. Additional coverage has also been provided by the Universal Space Network's Hawaii antenna.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20130617.html

February 19, 2014 - С помощью NuSTAR астрономы уточнили модели формирования сверхновых.
Были получены данные о распределении частиц изотопа титана-44, содержащегося в останках сверхновой Cassiopeia A. Вещество присутствует в центре формирования. Также "полосы" этого материала "торчат" в разные стороны.
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nustar/supernova-explosion-20140219/#.UwmwC4XQS4U (http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/nustar/supernova-explosion-20140219/#.UwmwC4XQS4U)
Снимки «NuSTAR» позволили исследователям поставить под сомнение те модели взрывов сверхновых, которые утверждают, что скорость вращения звезды перед «гибелью» увеличивается и что "спусковым механизмом" взрыва являются струи материи (джеты), выбрасываемые в пространство умирающей звездой.
"Результаты наблюдений за звездой Cas A позволяют предположить, что она, прежде чем взорваться, достаточно долго "хлюпала", вторично возбуждая и подпитывая энергией стоячие ударные волны, что в конце концов привело к отрыву внешних слоев от ядра звезды", - говорят ученые НАСА.

NuSTAR's First Five Years in Space
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6872