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| Orbital Sciences' L-1011 Stargazer sits on a ramp with a Pegasus rocket underneath.
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| The HETE-2 satellite will study gamma-ray bursts in space.
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NASA Astronomy Probe Delivered to Earth Orbit by Pegasus Rocket
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
posted: 02:00 am ET
09 October 2000
ET
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A tiny satellite rode a small rocket into space early Monday on a mission to sense the biggest explosions known in the universe. Known as the High Energy Transient Explorer-2 (HETE-2), the satellite will be the first spacecraft dedicated to the study of gamma-ray bursts, elusive events that are the most powerful explosions known to exist in the universe.
The scene from an earlier Pegasus mission shows the winged-rocket dropping from the belly of Stargazer, Orbital Sciences' L-1011 mothership. Image from NASA TV.
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The $23 million astronomy mission was successfully launched into Earth orbit at 1:38 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (05:38 GMT) atop an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL winged rocket for NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The commercial air-launched booster was carried by the company's L-1011 jumbo jet to a drop point over the Kwajalein Missile Range in the South Pacific, yet the launch itself was controlled from a hangar at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here in Florida. Mission managers were thrilled not only with the successful launch itself, but with the relative ease in which the remote-controlled space shot took place."Not only was the countdown good, but the powered flight was perfect and we had a really good mission today," said Ray Lugo, NASA's launch manager at the Kennedy Space Center for the Pegasus mission. "Everybody's very happy about the success we had tonight." ~Gamma-ray bursts During its four-year mission, the HETE-2 satellite will detect perhaps hundreds of gamma-ray bursts, each equal in fury to 1,000 supernovae. The bursts occur randomly and can last as little as a fraction of a second, making them difficult to catch in the act.
Workers prepare the HETE-2 spacecraft for launch at the nose of a Pegasus XL rocket. Image from NASA TV.
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However, HETE-2 will bask -- albeit briefly -- in the explosions' afterglow, detectable sometimes for days in the X-ray and optical wavelengths. Once HETE-2 has detected a burst, it will nimbly relay the data to ground stations and on to astronomers worldwide for immediate follow-up observations. "It's still a mystery what causes these things. We hope to shed some light on that. Beyond that, this mission is probably going to discover things we can't possibly predict," said Caltech astronomer Daniel Reichart. The satellite replaces the earlier HETE bird, launched Nov. 4, 1996. The Pegasus rocket used to hoist the original HETE into orbit -- along with the SAC-B satellite -- failed to release its double payload from its third stage. Although radio transmissions indicated the original HETE was functioning perfectly on orbit, it remained mated to the rocket's third stage, failing shortly thereafter since it could not unfurl its solar arrays to recharge its onboard batteries. Now, four years later, the replacement satellite's technology is essentially the same, except for a new detector built by MIT. HETE-2 is an international collaboration, with partners including MIT, NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, France's National Space Studies Center and Center for the Study of Space Radiation, as well as Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN).
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