In space shuttle Atlantis' payload bay STS-125 crew members take a final close look at the hardware for the Hubble servicing mission. The payload bay holds four carriers of equipment that include the Wide Field Camera 3, Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the Soft Capture Mechanism and replacement gyroscopes and batteries. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett April 28, 2009
Date
4/29/09
View of space grown semicond
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Title
View of space grown semiconductor crystals grown as Skylab 4 experiment
Description
View of space grown (zero-g) semiconductor crystals ( Germanium Selenide) grown as part of the Skylab 4 experiment M556, single crystal vapor growth.
Date Taken
1974-04-03
CCD - Delta-Doped Charged Co
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Delta-Doped Charged Coupled
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Description
Delta-Doped Charged Coupled Devices (CCD) for Ultra-Violet and Visible Detection This CCD will allow scientists to study one of the least explored windows of the electromagnetic spectrum -- the extreme ultraviolet. Until recently, scientist believed there was little point in exploring this spectral region. They thought that the mixture of hydrogen gas and other less abundant gases, which fills the space between stars and is commonly called the "interstellar medium," would absorb virtually all extreme ultraviolet radiation before it reached Earth's vicinity. Consequently, this region became known as the "unobservable ultraviolet." Stable ultraviolet CCDs are crucial in space and ground-based astronomy for detection of younger, hotter objects . Because of the high quantum efficiency of these devices, very faint objects can potentially be observed. Stability of the device makes it possible to gather reliable data in space-based astronomy. Scientists will learn much more about hot white dwarf stars -- extremely dense stars that represent a final stage of stellar evolution -- and young massive stars that are characterized by outflowing, shock-heated winds. Moreover, they will learn about cataclysmic variable stars, binary star systems in which the mass of one star is transferred to the other, causing dramatic changes in extreme ultraviolet brightness. They may even have a chance to probe the enigmatic cores of distant galaxies. Read More About It: Ongoing Technology Development: http://csmt.jpl.nasa.gov/csmtpages/technologies/uvccd/Uvccd.html For Education about High-Energy Astrophysics: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/homepage.html #####
Installation of Chandra X-Ra
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Name of Image
Installation of Chandra X-Ray Observatory Charged-Coupled Imaging Spectrometer
Date of Image
1997-04-15
Full Description
This photograph captures the installation of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, formerly Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), Advanced Charged-Coupled Device (CCD) Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) into the Vacuum Chamber at the X-Ray Calibration Facility (XRCF) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The AXAF was renamed Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO) in 1999. The CXO is the most sophisticated and the world's most powerful x-ray telescope ever built. It observes x-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as hot gas in the remnants of exploded stars. The ACIS is one of two focal plane instruments. As the name suggests, this instrument is an array of CCDs similar to those used in a camcorder. This instrument will be especially useful because it can make x-ray images and measure the energies of incoming x-rays. It is the instrument of choice for studying the temperature variation across x-ray sources, such as vast clouds of hot-gas intergalactic space. MSFC's XRCF is the world's largest, most advanced laboratory for simulating x-ray emissions from distant celestial objects. It produces a space-like environment in which components related to x-ray telescope imaging are tested and the quality of their performances in space is predicted. TRW, Inc. was the prime contractor for the development of the CXO and NASA's MSFC was responsible for its project management. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations of the CXO for NASA from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The CXO was launched July 22, 1999 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-93).
Thinned Delta-Doped CCD
This is a thinned, delta-dop
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Description
This is a thinned, delta-doped CCD. The word you see is a partial reflection of "Spectroscopy" (backwards because it is reflected by the mirror-like surface of the chip). The word is not intended as an identification, but was used as an indication that the chemically-thinned silicon surface is very flat. This is important, because the CCD is an optical detector, and a high quality, specular surface is important to image quality. The side of the chip that you don't see (because it is face down) has the CCD gate and readout structure, and the bond pads that are connected to the pins you see at the edge of the package. The silicon itself is only about 10 microns thick (about 1/10 the diameter of a human hair), and the surface is flat because the CCD was bonded to a support structure before thinning. Thinning was done at the JPL Microdevices Laboratory. Following thinning, a few atomic layers of highly-doped silicon are grown on the mirror-like surface, resulting in a remarkable improvement of sensitivity. This CCD can detect light from the x-ray, extreme ultraviolet, near ultraviolet, visible and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum with high efficiency, and it can also detect electrons, protons, and ions at lower energies than any other silicon detector. #####
Dr. Fishman Reviewing Data F
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Name of Image
Dr. Fishman Reviewing Data From the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE)
Date of Image
1996-01-01
Full Description
In this photograph, Dr. Gerald Fishman of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), a principal investigator of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory's (GRO's) instrument, the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), and Dr. Chryssa Kouveliotou of Universities Space Research Associates review data from the BATSE. For nearly 9 years, GRO's Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE), designed and built by the Marshall Space Flight Center, kept a blinking watch on the universe to alert scientist to the invisible, mysterious gamma-ray bursts. By studying gamma-rays from objects like black holes, pulsars, quasars, neutron stars, and other exotic objects, scientists could discover clues to the birth, evolution, and death of stars, galaxies, and the universe. The gamma-ray instrument was one of four major science instruments aboard the Compton. It consisted of eight detectors, or modules, located at each corner of the rectangular satellite to simultaneously scan the entire universe for bursts of gamma-rays ranging in duration from fractions of a second to minutes. Because gamma-rays are so powerful, they pass through conventional telescope mirrors. Instead of a mirror, the heart of each BATSE module was a large, flat, transparent crystal that generated a tiny flash of light when struck by a gamma-ray. With an impressive list of discoveries and diverse accomplishments, BATSE could claim to have rewritten astronomy textbooks. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis during the STS-35 mission in April 1991, the GRO reentered the Earth's atmosphere and ended its successful 9-year mission in June 2000.
Artist concept of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, managed by JPL. It will expand our understanding of the origins and destinies of stars and galaxies.
STS-135 Atlantis Prelaunch (
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The space shuttle Atlantis i
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2011-07-07T00:00:00Z
HETE-2 Rides Pegasus
Title
HETE-2 Rides Pegasus
Explanation
The Stargazer [ http://www.orbital.com/LaunchVehicles/Pegasus/stargazer.htm ], a modified Lockheed L-1011 aircraft, soared into the skies above Kwajalein [ http://www.smdc.army.mil/kmr.html ] Atoll in the pacific on October 9th. A small satellite observatory known as the High Energy Transient Explorer - 2 (HETE-2 [ http://space.mit.edu/HETE/ ]) was tucked into Stargazer's winged Pegasus rocket [ http://www.orbital.com/LaunchVehicles/Pegasus/pegasus.htm ], slung beneath the large trimotor jet's fuselage. Dropped [ http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/payload/missions/hete-2/ ] from its mother ship, the Pegasus then successfully flew HETE-2 into orbit. HETE-2's [ http://space.mit.edu/HETE/spacecraft.html ] mission is to hunt gamma-ray bursts, brief, random flashes of high energy photons from the distant cosmos. Gamma-ray bursts [ http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ ast26mar99_1.htm ] are impressive, believed to be the most powerful explosions in the Universe, but so few have been well located and studied that the nature of [ http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0010176 ] the bursters themselves is still shrouded in mystery. HETE-2's x-ray and gamma-ray instruments will be able to rapidly alert ground-based observatories to point toward ongoing, bright gamma-ray bursts. Communications antennae and solar panels neatly folded, HETE-2 is seen [ http://space.mit.edu/HETE/pictures/ ] here being carefully enclosed in the Pegasus nose fairing.
Scientific Balloon
Title
Scientific Balloon
Full Description
When scientists need longer exposure times in high altitudes, they use scientific balloons like the one pictured here. Made of a super-thin polyethylene, the balloons are filled with inert helium and can be launched from almost anywhere, staying aloft for as long as 24 hours, 26 miles above the surface. Goddard Space Flight Center assumed the management of these research tools from the National Science Foundation in 1982 and now launches about 35 balloons a year.
Date
1/1/2002
NASA Center
Goddard Space Flight Center
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