By Craig Garcia - After a 30 minute delay to iron out some technical glitches, NASA's newest x-ray observatory was successfully launched from a L-1001 Stargazer jet airplane and broke the bounds of earth to begin its' mission to study the heavens.
At 12pm EDT (1600 GMT) the L-1001 airplane dropped a Pegasus rocket, carrying the $165 Million NuSTAR telescope, which then fired its booster allowing it to achieve escape velocity and climb its way out of the Earth.
"Today was a great day for NuSTAR, a great day for Pegasus, a great day for the entire launch team," said NASA's assistant launch director Tim Dunn. "We thank Orbital Sciences for the ride, and we're ready to get into the science portion of the mission."
In approximately a weeks time, NuSTAR will extend it's 10 meter mast separating the spacecraft's "eyes" and will then begin its mission seeking out black holes, dead star remnants, and supernova explosions.
One of the first objects NuSTAR will be investigating will be a black hole close to home. "One of the first things we'll look at is Cygnus X-1, a black hole in
our own galaxy, which acts as a perfect point source for us to check how
crisp our images are," said William Craig a NuSTAR instrument manager.
Below is a short video of the launch, courtesy of NuSTAR and space.com
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