NuSTAR Space Telescope Launch Postpoed by NASA

In order to allow time for additional checks on some of the flight software used by the launch vehicle’s flight computer, NASA’s launch of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has been postponed.

The scientific instruments onboard the NuSTAR spacecraft will be carried into space by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, which will be dropped from an aircraft from altitude. This method of launch significantly reduces the amount of propellant needed to get a payload off of the ground, and also makes it more efficient to get a payload into space.

Once the launch is rescheduled, the aircraft will take off from the Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. NASA expects the next launch opportunity to occur within the next two months once the software checks and modifications are complete.

According to NASA, “the 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.”