NASA's Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer will be launching soon:
Nearly 50 years after British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell discovered the existence of rapidly spinning neutron stars, NASA will launch the world's first mission devoted to studying these unusual objects. The agency also will use the same platform to carry out the world's first demonstration of X-ray navigation in space.
The agency plans to launch the two-in-one Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, aboard SpaceX CRS-11, a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station to be launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
About a week after its installation as an external attached payload, this one-of-a-kind investigation will begin observing neutron stars, the densest objects in the universe. The mission will focus especially on pulsars — those neutron stars that appear to wink on and off because their spin sweeps beams of radiation past us, like a cosmic lighthouse.
NICER will be attached to the International Space Station, which is being resupplied:
SpaceX will launch its first re-used Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 on Saturday, beginning the CRS-11 resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch was scrubbed during the initial attempt due to poor weather, meaning Falcon 9 will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center – making the hundredth flight from the historic Launch Complex 39A – to the weekend.
[...] C106 is the first Dragon spacecraft to be used for a second mission. The spacecraft was inspected and refurbished following its return to Earth and has had its heat shield replaced. However, the spacecraft's hull and most of its systems are flight-proven.
According to SpaceFlightNow:
There will not be a launch try Friday because time-critical science payloads stowed inside the Dragon supply ship at the top of the rocket must be changed out. The next launch attempt will be Saturday at 5:07 p.m. EDT (2107 GMT).
The unpiloted spaceship will carry 5,970 pounds (2,708 kilograms) of cargo to the space station, including a novel astrophysics experiment to study super-dense neutron stars and 40 mice for tests of a therapeutic drug designed to promote bone growth.
The launch delay means the Dragon spacecraft will miss its scheduled Sunday arrival at the orbiting research complex, opening up an opportunity for the station crew to release another supply ship that has been attached to the outpost since late April.
The SpaceX launch is live-streamed on YouTube: CRS-11 Hosted Webcast; coverage begins at approximately T-minus 20 minutes.
Related Stories
NASA Team First to Demonstrate X-ray Navigation in Space
In a technology first, a team of NASA engineers has demonstrated fully autonomous X-ray navigation in space — a capability that could revolutionize NASA's ability in the future to pilot robotic spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system and beyond.
The demonstration, which the team carried out with an experiment called Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT, showed that millisecond pulsars could be used to accurately determine the location of an object moving at thousands of miles per hour in space — similar to how the Global Positioning System, widely known as GPS, provides positioning, navigation, and timing services to users on Earth with its constellation of 24 operating satellites.
[...] The SEXTANT technology demonstration, which NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate had funded under its Game Changing Program, took advantage of the 52 X-ray telescopes and silicon-drift detectors that make up NASA's Neutron-star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER. Since its successful deployment as an external attached payload on the International Space Station in June, it has trained its optics on some of the most unusual objects in the universe.
"We're doing very cool science and using the space station as a platform to execute that science, which in turn enables X-ray navigation," said Goddard's Keith Gendreau, the principal investigator for NICER, who presented the findings Thursday, Jan. 11, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington. "The technology will help humanity navigate and explore the galaxy."
Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer
Previously: NASA to Study Neutron Stars; Sends New Instrument to ISS; SpaceX Launch Sat @ 2107 UTC (1707 EDT)
Related: Voyager's 'Cosmic Map' Of Earth's Location Is Hopelessly Wrong
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday June 03 2017, @10:28PM
If you missed it you ca still catch it on spacex.com .
I have to admit I'm kind of a space geek, and will watch just about any launch, but watching the first stage return and sit down on the pad still the coolest part. That's never getting old.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.