NuStar Launch Delayed By "Couple of Months"

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission will be delayed for several months following the conclusion of yesterday’s Flight Readiness Review (FRR). 

A NASA statement on NuStar’s website explains that the FRR concluded that more time is needed to ensure that a new flight computer for the Pegasus launch vehicle will issue commands as intended.  Consequently, the launch will slip past the end of March and thus must wait until the Kwajalein range is available again. The NASA statement said the next opportunity is “anticipated to be within the next couple of months.”

Orbital Science Corp’s Pegasus rocket is dropped from an aircraft that can take off from a number of locations. The Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is the site of a U.S. missile testing range and was chosen because NuSTAR is headed for an equatorial orbit.

A postponment of the launch was announced by NASA earlier this week,  but its extent was uncertain until after the FRR was completed.  NuSTAR is an x-ray telescope.  Fiona Harrison of CalTech is the principal investigator.