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Problems Cause More Delays for Astro-E Observatory
By Dan Sorid
Staff Writer
posted: 01:21 pm ET
09 February 2000
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Last-minute problems at a tracking station led to the second delay of the launch of the Astro-E X-ray Observatory from Japan's Kagoshima Space Center Last-minute problems at a tracking station led to a second delay of the launch of the Astro E X-ray Observatory from Japan's Kagoshima Space Center.The launch will now take place no earlier than Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (10:30 a.m. Thursday Japanese time). According to the Japan's Institute for Space and Astronomical Science, the problem was found three minutes before the launch was scheduled. On Monday, inclement weather, including wind and clouds grounded the M 5 launch vehicle that will carry the Astro E into orbit. Winds exceeded 30 miles per hour (14 meters per second), according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Astro E's strength will be its frigid X-ray spectrometer, a tool so cold that it can sense the heat of individual X-ray photons. It will join two other X-ray observatory's already in orbit -- the U.S.' Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror. Astro E's spectrometer will be the most powerful of the trio -- up to 10 times greater than Chandra's.
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