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Table of Contents:•Mission Overview•Timeline•Scientific Objectives•Spacecraft•Launch Vehicle•Equipment

Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ArrayNuSTAR

MISSION OVERVIEWMISSION OVERVIEW

Artist's concept of NuSTAR on orbit.

The NuSTAR mission will deploy the first focusing telescopes to image the sky in the high energy X-ray (6 - 79 ken) region of theelectromagnetic spectrum. NuSTAR will search for black holes, map supernova explosions, and study the most extreme active galaxies.

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TIMELINETIMELINE

• March 14, 2012 – NuStar launches.

• Mission length – 2 years.

• Orbit Height – 550 Kilometers.

• NuSTAR will launch into a low-Earth orbit, on a Pegasus XL rocket

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SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVESSCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES

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vvDuring a two-year primary mission phase, NuSTAR will map

selected regions of the sky in order to:

1.take a census of collapsed stars and black holes of different sizes by surveying regions surrounding the center of our Milky Way Galaxy and performing deep observations of the extragalactic sky;

2.map recently-synthesized material in young supernova remnants to understand how stars explode and how elements are created; and

3.understand what powers relativistic jets of particles from the most extreme active galaxies hosting supermassive black holes.

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SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVESSCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES

NuSTAR will also study the origin of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars while responding to targets of opportunity including supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. NuSTAR will perform follow-up observations to discoveries made by Chandra and Spitzer and will team with GLAST, making simultaneous observations which will greatly enhancing GLAST's science return.

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SPACECRAFTSPACECRAFT

The NuSTAR instrument consists of two co-aligned grazing incidence telescopes with specially coated optics and Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe) detectors that extend sensitivity to higher energies as compared to previous missions such as Chandra and XMM.

SPACECRAFTSPACECRAFT

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After launching into orbit, the NuSTAR telescope extends to achieve a 10-meter focal length. The observatory will provide a combination of sensitivity, spatial, and spectral resolution factors of 10 to 100 improved over previous missions that have operated at these X-ray energies.

Launch VehicleLaunch Vehicle

NuSTAR will launch into a low-Earth, near-equatorial orbit on a

Pegasus XL rocket from the Kwajalein Atoll. The Pegasus launch

vehicle, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, relies on a unique

air-launch system with

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the rocket released at

approximately 40,000

feet from the "Stargazer"

L-1011 aircraft. The

rocket then free-falls in a

horizontal position for

five seconds before

igniting its three-stage

rocket motor.

Launch VehicleLaunch Vehicle

The Pegasus launch from Kwajalein will position NuSTAR in a low-Earth equatorial orbit at an altitude of approximately 550 km and an inclination of 6 degrees.

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EQUIPMENT INDEXEQUIPMENT INDEX

• Optics• Deployable Mast• Focal Plane/Detectors

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OpticsOptics

NuSTAR employs two grazing incidence focusing optics each of which consists of 133 concentric shells. Using

epoxy and graphite spacers,

the layers are built up,

approximately one layer per

day. Each unit is 47.2 cm

(18.6 inches) long, 19.1 (7.5

inches) cm in diameter and

weighs 31 kg (69 pounds).

The first NuSTAR optics module (“FM0”) completed on August 5, 2010.

Deployable MastDeployable Mast

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Essential to the NuSTAR design is a deployable mast which extends to 10 meters (30 feet) after launch. This mast will separate the NuSTAR X-ray optics from the detectors, a necessity to achieve the long focal length required by the optics design.

Deployable MastDeployable Mast

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In order to assure that the NuSTAR optics are well-aligned with the detectors, an adjustment mechanism will be deployed on the mast. This mechanism will be used once at the beginning of the mission to align the telescope. In order to measure deflections of the mast, NuSTAR uses a laser metrology system consisting of two lasers on the optics end that are pointed at three light-sensing detectors at the detector end of the telescope. Measurements from the laser metrology system will be used to correct the X-ray images, which would otherwise be blurred by the motion of the mast.

Focal Plane/DetectorsFocal Plane/Detectors

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NuSTAR has two detector units, each at the focus of one of the two co-aligned NuSTAR optics units. The optical units observe the same area of sky, and the two images are combined on the ground.  The focal planes are each comprised of four 32×32 pixel Cadmium-Zinc-Tellurium (CdZnTe, or CZT) detectors.

• NuSTAR (CalTech)• NuSTAR (NASA)• Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

(Wikidepida)

LINKSLINKS

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