NASA NuStar: X-ray mission reaches orbit

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array begins its mission using high-energy x-rays to uncover some of the most powerful structures in the universe.

Image: NASA via UStream

At noon Eastern time on Wednesday, NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) blasted towards low-Earth orbit from a Pegasus XL rocket, after it was dropped from the belly of a carrier jet circling near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

The X-ray mission, a low-cost NASA mission in its small Explorer line of competitive missions, is expected to discover hundreds of new supermassive black holes that lie in the hearts of distant galaxies.

A lot is riding on NuSTAR — it is one of few missions in sight for X-ray astronomers. Just last week, GEMS, a similar-looking mission that would have gathered polarized X-ray light, was canceled because of budget overruns.

While NuSTAR is no replacement for general purpose X-ray observatories like Chandra and XMM-Newton, it will have unprecedented sensitivity in the “hard”, or high-energy, X-ray part of the spectrum.

Fifteen minutes after launch, the science payload had separated from the rocket. By 12:22 pm EDT, all five of NuSTAR’s solar panels had been deployed successfully.

It will be another week before the most nerve-wracking phase of the mission begins — the 26 minutes during which a deployable mast will unfurl itself so that NuSTAR can reach its full 10-metre focal length.