Artwork • May 1, 2012
Artist's concept of NuSTAR in orbit. NuSTAR has a 10-m (30') mast that was deployed after launch to separate the optics modules from the detectors in the focal plane.
Photograph • January 27, 2012
In the airlock at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California, a lifting fixture is employed to hoist NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array from its shipping container. NuSTAR was integrated into its Pegaus launch rocket at VAFB.
The Pegasus rocket carrying NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array can be seen at the belly of its carrier plane, the "Stargazer," as it lands on Kwajalein Atoll.
An Orbital Sciences technician completes final checks of NuSTAR, inside the Orbital Sciences processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California before the Pegasus payload fairing is secured around it.
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, enclosed in an environmentally controlled shipping container, is trucked by trailer to processing facility 1555 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
In the airlock of processing facility 1555 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, workers secure NuSTAR onto a handling dolly.
The payload transporter carrying the environmentally controlled shipping container enclosing NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array is parked in the airlock at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Photograph • January 1, 2012
The integrated NuSTAR observatory, including the instrument and spacecraft, at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia in January 2012.
Photograph • June 29, 2011
The integrated NuSTAR observatory, including the instrument and spacecraft, at Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Virginia on June 29, 2011.
Photograph • December 1, 2010
The final pre-launch deployment of the NuSTAR articulated mast occurred on in late 2010.
Photograph • May 16, 2010
Assembly of the first NuSTAR optics module (FM0). NuSTAR flies two optics units, each with 133 layers of grazing incidence optics.
Photograph • August 1, 2009
Niko Stergiou, a contractor at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, helped manufacture the 9,000 mirror segments that make up the optics unit in the NuSTAR mission.
The NuSTAR glass optics are being shaped at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) mirror development lab, led by Will Zhang.
Essential to the NuSTAR design is a deployable mast which extended to 10 meters (30 feet) after launch. This mast separates the NuSTAR X-ray optics from the detectors, a necessity to achieve the long focal length required by the optics design.
