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NASA Sky-Mapping Spacecraft “WISE” To Be Launched Soon.
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Showing posts with label
NASA Sky-Mapping Spacecraft “WISE” To Be Launched Soon.
Show all posts
China launched a new satellite Wednesday toward an orbit more than 22,000 miles above Earth, marking another step in building the country's own space navigation system. The Beidou satellite launched at 1553 GMT on a Long March 3C rocket from the Xichang space center in Sichuan area in southwestern China, where it was just before midnight.
Powered by three stages and two strap-on boosters, the 180-foot-tall rocket turned east from Xichang and deployed the Beidou navigation satellite into a geosynchronous transfer course, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. Engines on the satellite will further lift its altitude in the next few weeks, and the craft will eventually slide into a parking slot 22,300 miles over the equator to covers the Asia-Pacific region.
The satellite is the fourth spacecraft to be launch in the second-generation Beidou constellation. Two previous satellites were located in geosynchronous orbit, including the system's newest member launched in January. Another spacecraft is operating in an orbit about 13,000 mile above Earth.
NASA is going to launch its newest sky-mapping spacecraft ‘Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer’ to examine the forwarding asteroids, meteors, stars and galaxies in the universe. This mission is aimed at analyze the forthcoming threats from outer space.
NASA’s sky-mapping spacecraft, Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is to be launched by Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California by a Delta 2 rocket.
As said by the sources, the spacecraft will orbit the Earth staying at about 325 miles over the Earth and produce the comprehensive map of the universe. The spacecraft will orbit the Earth 15 times a day also capture about 7,500 images per day in 4 different infrared wavelengths.
It is also designed to discover extra-terrestrial objects that are often invisible to the optical telescopes. That is, principally the mission will be an attempt to look for numerous hard-to-see objects. More to it, the spacecraft will also look for the dying stars, brown dwarfs and nuclear phenomena all over the universe.
"It is really a mission to survey everything that's out there," Wright, a leading scientist said.
"What we are trying to do is make a map of the universe," he added.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been instrumental in this USD 320 million mission, which can take forward the mission dissimilar its predecessor Infrared Astronomical Satellite. The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was a joint US-British-Dutch project, which achieved its mission target by discovering 6 comets and presence of dust in a few distant stars. It became non-operational after ten months of work.
