Launch of NASA's NuSTAR Mission Postponed

WASHINGTON -- The planned launch of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic
Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has been postponed after a March 15
launch status meeting. The launch will be rescheduled to allow
additional time to confirm the flight software used by the launch
vehicle's flight computer will issue commands to the rocket as intended.

The spacecraft will lift off on an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket,
which will be released from an aircraft taking off from the Reagan
Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The time
required to complete the software review has moved NuSTAR beyond the
March timeframe currently available on the range at Kwajalein. In the
interim, NASA will coordinate with the launch site to determine the
earliest possible launch opportunity. This is expected to be within
the next two months.

NuSTAR will use advanced optics and detectors, allowing astronomers to
observe the high-energy X-ray sky with much greater sensitivity and
clarity than any mission flown before. The mission will advance our
understanding of how structures in the universe form and evolve. It
will observe some of the hottest, densest and most energetic objects
in the universe, including black holes, their high-speed particle
jets, ultra-dense neutron stars, supernova remnants, and our sun.

For more information about NuSTAR, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

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