spacetoday.net: NASA restarts astronomy mission

NASA restarts astronomy mission

Posted: Sat, Sep 22, 2007, 8:02 PM ET (0002 GMT)
NuSTAR spacecraft illustration (NASA)

NASA announced Friday that it has restarted work on an astronomy mission that was suspended in the early stages of development over a year ago because of budget pressures. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission was suspended in early 2006 during a study phase because of tight budgets within NASA's science program. On Friday NASA announced that it would be able to resume work on the mission, although the agency did not go into details regarding the decision to resume the mission. NuSTAR, now scheduled for launch in 2011, features an array of hard x-ray telescopes designed to better detect black holes and other energetic astronomical phenomena.