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Assembly of NASA's X-Ray Telescope Completed

Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC                       March 12, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1547)

Dave Drachlis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
(Phone:  205/544-0034)

A. Brooks McKinney
TRW Space and Electronics Group, Redondo Beach, CA
(Phone:  310/814-8177)

RELEASE:  98-43

ASSEMBLY OF NASA'S X-RAY TELESCOPE COMPLETED

     Assembly of the world's most powerful X-ray telescope, NASA's 
Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, was completed last week with 
the installation of its power-generating twin solar panels.  AXAF 
is scheduled for launch aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-93, in 
December 1998.

     The last major components of the observatory were bolted and 
pinned into place March 4 at TRW Space & Electronics Group in 
Redondo Beach, CA, and pre-launch testing of the fully assembled 
observatory began March 7.

     "Completion of the observatory's assembly process is a big 
step forward toward launch scheduled for the end of this year," 
said Fred Wojtalik, manager of the Observatory Projects Office at 
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL.  "With all 
the major components in place, we are now concentrating on a 
thorough pre-launch checkout of the observatory."

     "We're delighted to reach this major milestone for the 
program," said Craig Staresinich, TRW's Advanced X-ray 
Astrophysics Facility program manager.  "The entire observatory 
team has worked hard to get to this point and will continue an 
exhaustive test program to ensure mission success.  We're looking 
forward to delivering a truly magnificent new space capability to 
NASA later this summer."

     The first pre-launch test of the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics 
Facility was an acoustic test, which simulated the sound pressure 
environment inside the Space Shuttle cargo bay during launch.  A 
thorough electrical checkout before and after the acoustic test 
verifies that the observatory and its science instruments can 
withstand the extreme sound levels and vibrations that accompany 
launch.

     "With 10 times the resolution and 50-100 times the 
sensitivity of any previous X-ray telescope, this observatory will 
provide us with a new perspective of our universe," said the 
project's chief scientist, Dr. Martin Weisskopf, of Marshall.  
"We'll be able to study sources of X-rays throughout the universe, 
like colliding galaxies and black holes, many of which are 
invisible to us now.  We may even see the processes that create 
the elements found here on Earth."

     Assembly of the observatory began in 1997 with the arrival of 
the high resolution mirror assembly at TRW Space and Electronics 
Group.  In August 1997, the telescope's optical bench was mated 
with the mirrors, followed by integration of the telescope with 
the spacecraft in October.  In February 1998, the observatory's 
science instrument module was mated to the top of the telescope.  
The complete observatory is 45 feet long, has a solar array wing 
span 64 feet wide, and weighs more than 5 tons.

     Using glass purchased from Schott Glaswerke, Mainz, Germany, 
the telescope's mirrors were built by Raytheon Optical Systems 
Inc., Danbury, CT.  The mirrors were coated by Optical Coating 
Laboratory Inc., Santa Rosa, CA, and assembled by Eastman-Kodak 
Co., Rochester, NY.  The observatory's charged coupled device 
imaging spectrometer was developed by the Pennsylvania State 
University at University Park, and the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology (MIT), at Cambridge.  One diffraction grating was 
developed by MIT, the other by the Space Research Organization 
Netherlands, Utrecht, in collaboration with the Max Planck 
Institute, Garching, Germany.  The high resolution camera 
instrument was built by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.  
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation of Boulder, CO, 
developed the science instrument module.

     The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility program is managed 
by Marshall for the Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters, 
Washington, DC.  The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 
Cambridge, MA, will operate the observatory for NASA.  

                         - end -