… and sooner than I thought. I’ve written about GLAST many times before: it’s a telescope that will observe super-high-energy gamma rays, which are emitted by only the most energetic and powerful objects in the Universe: exploding stars, magnetic neutron stars, regions near black holes… y’know, just your average ultra-violence.
I’m on the Education and Public Outreach team, so I was really happy to get an email from Kevin Grady, the GLAST project manager:
The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Program Management Council approved the rebaseline of the GLAST mission today, to launch no later than November 2007. We are fortunate that the support of the GLAST mission by the Science Mission Directorate continues to remain so strong. This is a direct result of the outstanding effort that each of you continue to put forth on the various GLAST elements. The current Delta II manifested launch date for GLAST is October 7, 2007. That date will remain our official manifest launch date as we move the Program forward.
So we have a launch date! October 7, 2007. That’s less than a year from now! We’re already preparing for launch, planning what we’ll write, what knickknacks we’ll make as a commemoration, and all that. I suppose I’ll go see the launch, too. I haven’t watched one live in many years, not since the Shuttle carried a camera I worked on into orbit. I can’t wait!
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:25 pm
3 points for using Clockwork Orange references on astronomical objects.
October 24th, 2006 at 12:51 am
Don’t forget we’ve also got a pretty exciting launch tomorrow, when the twin STEREO observatories are due to blast off from Cape Canaveral to study something closer to home in 3D – the Sun.
http://skymania.blogspot.com/2006/10/watching-solar-storms-in-stereo.html
Can’t wait to see those coronal mass ejections hurtling towards us!
Paul
http://skymania.blogspot.com
October 24th, 2006 at 8:13 am
I imagine GLAST will be used to improve our knowledge of gamma ray bursts, those events caused by the events you listed Phil?
Sweet!
Good to see a science mission like this get an earlier than expected launch date.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Ah, STEREO! Right. I’ll check in on that. And yes, GLAST has GRB detectors on it. It’s not as sensitive for Swift, but it’ll help us understand those beasts quite a bit.
October 24th, 2006 at 10:18 am
“y’know, just your average ultra-violence.”
The most violent explosion (controlled of course) that effects the Earth is the energy emitted from our Sun. This GLAST BLAST off does sound very very interesting though.
Thank you Paul Sutherland for letting me know about the STEREO MISSION. Both you and Phil have great jobs for sure. I feel like a martian sometimes—green with good envy.
Good luck to both of your launch teams.
October 24th, 2006 at 10:32 am
I happened to visit the GLAST burst detectors at MSFC last summer – as it turned out, the week before they were shipped off for integration. A couple of grad students were tweaking the software. One told the PI she needed a calibration source – he seemed so cavalier about pulling the thing out of the cabinet and waving it around that I looked around for shielding to duck behind.
Best wishes to GLAST – which seems like the next-to-last NASA observatory on stay on track (and not be eaten by JWST costs…)
October 24th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
I was wondering how the LAT would work until I went over to the Stanford’s GLAST page. What remarkable things engineers do. I watch the evolution of the X-ray satellites from the first on [gack, I can't remeber it's name at the momnet] which used a lattice array to help determine the direction from which the X-rays were coming to the high incidence reflection telescope which was used on the latest one.
One of the materiasl used for the GLAST LAT reminds me of a joke I came up with not too long a go.
What do forensic workers put in their salt shakers? CsI (?)