NASA's NuSTAR launched 13/6/12

On the 6 of July 2012 NASA's latest telescope the Nucler Spectroscopic Telescope Array,NuSTAR for short.

NuSTAR is designed to observe the poorly observed X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum,to cut a long story short it sees in X-rays.

We understand alot about our universe because we observe the universe in different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. infared,ultraviolet,radio and so on.)this is understanding is helped thanks to telescopes that observe in these wavelengths,like the Hubble,Spitzer,Herschel and WISE theese like most other telescopes observe in infared,however this is only a small part of the spectrum.

While there is no shortage in visable,microwave,ultraviolet and especially infared there is only a few telescopes that can see X-rays (for example the XMM Newton or the Chandra) that is why NASA have built the NuSTAR telescope,because they want to know more about how the more about poorly understood X-ray sources like quasars or pulsars and-in-turn better our understanding of the Universe.

NuSTAR was launched not from a rocket but from a plane, NuSTAR was straped to a Pegasus XL rocket and then dropped from the plane. After free falling for 5 secounds the Pegasus XL's engines fired up and carried it up to its final low-Earth-orbit where it detatched from the pegasus XL, at 9:14 a.m NuSTAR sent back its first messages stating that its launch was succesful. NuSTAR is a feat of engeneering in many ways but there is one thing that really stands out and thats it's 10 meter (33-foot) long mast whith an array of mirrors at the end which brings the whole telescope into focus.

the mast is folded up at the moment but in 7 days the mast will be unfolded bringing the skies into focus and around 23 days later science operations are scheduled to begin.

links

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20120613.html

www.nustar.caltech.edu/news-updates