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For Release: Sept. 11, 1997 Jerry Berg Release: 97-233 |
| Control Center For NASA’S Advanced X-Ray Telescope Opens In Cambridge, MA. |
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NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin will officially open the control center for NASA’s next great observatory, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday, Sept. 12, at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Following the ceremony, the media will have a photo opportunity and question and answer session with Goldin. Media interested in covering the opening should arrive at 1 Hampshire St., the Hill Building, by 1 p.m. The control center will manage the mission of NASA’s most powerful orbiting X-ray telescope and provide science data to the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility Science Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. From the control center, flight engineers will control the spacecraft, transmitting instructions, and receiving and processing the data it relays to Earth. The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility is scheduled for launch aboard the Space Shuttle in August 1998. In orbit, it will obtain never-before-seen images of highly energized X-ray sources -- such as neutron stars, black holes, debris from exploding stars, quasars, centers of galaxies and galaxy clusters. The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility program for NASA. |
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