NASA To Host News Teleconference About NuSTAR Launch

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Jun 06, 2012, 04:15 ET

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news teleconference 3 p.m. EDT June 11 to discuss the upcoming launch of its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) spacecraft which is scheduled for no earlier than 11:30 a.m. EDT June 13.

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The observatory, a black-hole hunter with sharp X-ray eyes, will be launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. NuSTAR is attached to an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket which is mounted on the bottom of an L-1011 Stargazer aircraft. The airplane will take off from Kwajalein Atoll and release the rocket, which will ignite its engines in the air. The Stargazer departed Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California June 5 and will land at Kwajalein June 6.

Panelists include:

Omar Baez, NASA launch director, Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
William Craig, NuSTAR instrument manager, University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley)
Grace Baird, NuSTAR bus chief engineer, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va.

The news teleconference will take place at the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Local reporters wanting to attend must send an email to Robert Sanders at [email protected] by 2 p.m. EDT June 11.

For dial-in information, reporters must email their name, media affiliation and telephone number to J.D. Harrington at [email protected] by 2 p.m. EDT June 11.

Graphics presented during the teleconference will be online shortly before the start of the teleconference at:

http://1.usa.gov/nustar

Live audio of the teleconference will be available at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

On June 13, launch coverage and commentary will be broadcast online beginning 90 minutes before launch at:

http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

SOURCE NASA