For Release: February 6, 1998

Dave Drachlis
Office of Media Services
(256) 544-0034
dave.drachlis@msfc.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 98-020

NASA’s most powerful X-ray observatory successfully completed the first of four mission operations tests this week.

For the first time, on February 2, operators at the observatory’s control center in Massachusetts sent commands to the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility in California, where it is undergoing final assembly.

Commands were routed from the control center through NASA’s Deep Space Network to the observatory. The test exercised numerous elements of the system that will be used to control the observatory in orbit.

"We’re delighted with the results of this initial test and with the performance of the entire Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility team," said Tom Rankin, manager of the Operations and Science Center Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "In fact, things went so well that we completed all the objectives scheduled for the two-day test in just over one day. From the very first command sent at 9:30 a.m., Monday, the observatory received and responded as expected to about 10,000 instructions. This was truly a group effort," said Rankin.

The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility program is managed by the Marshall Center for the Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. TRW The orbiting observatory was completed with the installation of the Integrated Science Instrument Module, which was shipped from Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Boulder Colo., on February ~. TRW Space & Electronics Group ofof Redondo Beach, Calif., is assembling the observatory and doing verification testing of the facility. The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility Operations Control Center, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., transmitted all commands during this test and will control the observatory in flight. A technical support team at Marshall Center monitored data from the observatory during the test.

With a resolving power 10 times greater than previous X-ray telescopes, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility will provide scientists with never-before-seen views of X-ray sources, including black holes, exploding stars and interstellar gasses.

The mission operations test was the second milestone for the observatory in less than a week. Jan. 29, TRW successfully completed the first series of Comprehensive Acceptance Tests. These tests consisted primarily of a checkout of the observatory’s spacecraft systems. The successful completion of these tests shows that the hardware and software systems, which make up the spacecraft, are working as designed.

A similar mission operations test will be conducted while the observatory is still in California. Two more tests will be performed after its arrival at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., for launch onboard the Space Shuttle later this year.