ORBITING CARBON OBSERVATORY SPACECRAFT TESTED IN THERMAL CHAMBER

FROM:  NASA 

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 spacecraft is moved into a thermal vacuum chamber at Orbital Sciences Corporation's Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, Ariz., for a series of environmental tests. The tests confirmed the integrity of the observatory's electrical connections and subjected the OCO-2 instrument and spacecraft to the extreme hot, cold and airless environment they will encounter once in orbit. The observatory's solar array panels were removed prior to the test. OCO-2 is NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide and is the latest mission in NASA's study of the global carbon cycle. Carbon dioxide is the most significant human-produced greenhouse gas and the principal human-produced driver of climate change. The mission will uniformly sample the atmosphere above Earth's land and ocean, collecting between 100,000 and 200,000 measurements of carbon dioxide concentration over Earth's sunlit hemisphere every day for at least two years. It will do so with the accuracy, resolution and coverage needed to provide the first complete picture of the regional-scale geographic distribution and seasonal variations of both human and natural sources of carbon dioxide emissions as well as the places where carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored. Image Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation/NASA/JPL-Caltech

AN ANTARES ROCKET LAUNCHES TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

FROM:  NASA   
The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket, with the Cygnus cargo spacecraft aboard, is seen in this false color infrared image, as it launches from Pad-0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013, NASA Wallops Flight Facility.  NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. Cygnus is on its way to rendezvous with the space station. The spacecraft will deliver about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food and clothing, to the Expedition 37 crew.  Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NUSTAR, GALACTIC EXPLORER

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT ARMED WITH SCIENCE
This photo shows the Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket with the NuSTAR spacecraft after attachment to the L-1011 carrier aircraft known as "Stargazer." Image credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB 

Written on JUNE 10, 2012 AT 7:54 AM by JTOZER
NuStar Headed To The Stars
 NASA‘s Nuclear Spectroscopic Teelscope 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.  Launch management and government oversight for the mission is the responsibility of NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.