NASA's X-RAY TIMING Explorer (XTE) has been shipped from the Goddard Space Flight Center, in Maryland, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for its Delta 2 launch on 31 August.
The 3,045kg XTE will gather data about X-ray-emitting star systems and other sources within the Milky Way galaxy and beyond. It carries a proportional counter array, the high-energy X-ray timing experiment and all-sky monitor. It will be operated for two years.
"The X-ray sky is highly variable," says Dr Jean Swank, XTE project scientist. "Suddenly, an obscure faint star lost in the crowd can become the brightest X-ray source in the sky, revealing where a black hole is likely to be."
Neutron stars emit beams of X-rays, which sweep across the view as they rotate. "The XTE is tuned to watch the action and study it. The data will allow us to study the strongest gravitational and magnetic fields that we think exist in the universe," says Swank.
Source: Flight International