The first stage of the Delta II rocket to be used to launch the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, has arrived at Cape Canaveral, Fla.
GLAST will explore the most extreme environments in the universe, where nature harnesses energies far beyond anything possible on Earth, said Kevin Grady, the GLAST project manager. He said the telescope will be used to search for signs of new laws of physics and what composes the mysterious dark matter, explain how black holes accelerate immense jets of material to nearly light speed and help solve the mysteries of the enormously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts.
GLAST is to be launched May 16 from the Kennedy Space Center.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to rename the observatory and has invited the public to submit name suggestions that can be an acronym but it isn't a requirement. The suggestions can be submitted through March 31 at
http://glast.sonoma.edu/glastname.
NASA said the GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed with the U.S. Department of Energy and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
Related stories:
GLAST's Delta II rocket's first stage arrives in Cape Canaveral
The first stage of the Delta II rocket that will be used to launch the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) into space in May has arrived at Hangar M on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. It joins the second stage, which is already at CCAFS.
Name that Space Telescope!
Would you like to name the next great space telescope? Here's your chance: NASA is inviting members of the general public from around the world to suggest a new name for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. GLAST is designed to probe the most violent events and exotic objects in the cosmos from gamma-ray bursts to black holes and beyond.
Seeing the universe through gamma-ray eyes
The scientists have stopped holding their breath. Three weeks after the launch of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), researchers from Stanford University, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and elsewhere have shaken awake the scientific instruments aboard their $690 million satellite, 350 miles above Earth, for the first time. And everything's working.
GLAST mission operations at NASA Goddard powered up
Several bases of operations for NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) are gearing up for data from the recently launched satellite.
NASA GLAST Burst Monitor Powers Up Successfully
NASA’s GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) Instrument Operations Center in Huntsville, Ala., the focal point for observing gamma ray bursts, was alive with energy as scientists gathered to witness instrument activation the evening of June 25. The GBM team linked in with GLAST mission operations at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., by teleconference and studied a big screen projecting spacecraft information live.
Looking for New Light
In many ways, astronomers are in the dark about asteroids. In the dark depths of the Kuiper Asteroid Belt beyond Neptune's orbit, and even in the nearby Main Belt between Jupiter and Mars, most asteroids are too small to reflect back enough sunlight to be seen by our telescopes. But as cosmic rays travel through our solar system, they may strike a glancing blow off the surface of an asteroid, producing gamma rays (short wavelength light waves). Researchers now report that they can use this gamma ray radiation to infer the number of small asteroids in different groups of small solar system bodies. However, they will have to wait to test their ideas until the new Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), launched last week by NASA, returns data.
GLAST safely in orbit, getting check-ups
A week after launch, NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is safely up-and-running well in orbit approximately 350 miles (565 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.
GLAST Observatory in Orbit
At 12:05 p.m. EDT, the Delta II rocket easily lifted the GLAST spacecraft off the launch pad, out of smoke and clouds and into a beautiful Florida sky headed for space.