RELEASE NO. 98-80

GLAST and Constellation X-Ray Mission Selections Made

NASA has selected nine proposals to receive a total of $30 million to develop advanced technologies that can be used on the Constellation X and Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) missions slated for development early in the next Century.

Selected to develop advanced technologies for the Constellation X Mission are:

• Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

• California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

• Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.

• Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.

• Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill.

• Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Selected to develop advanced technologies for the GLAST mission are:

• Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

• The University of Alabama, Huntsville

• University of California at Riverside, Calif.

The seven institutions selected for the Constellation-X Mission effort will receive a total of $20 million over the next three and one-half years to work on critical technology areas required to achieve the scientific mission. The Constellation X-ray

Mission is a Next Generation X-ray Observatory dedicated to observations at high spectral resolution, providing as much as a factor of 100 increase in sensitivity over currently planned high resolution X-ray spectroscopy missions. NASA plans to initiate the development phase of the Constellation X-ray Mission in approximately 2004.

Constellation-X is the X-ray equivalent of the Keck Telescope and will mark the start of a new era when high resolution X-ray spectra will be obtained for all classes of X-ray sources over a wide range of luminosity and distance. With its increased capabilities, Constellation-X will address many fundamental astrophysics questions such as the origin and distribution of the elements from carbon to zinc; the formation and evolution of clusters of galaxies; the validity of general relativity in the strong gravity limit; the evolution of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei; the details of supernova explosions and their aftermath; and the mechanisms involved in the heating of stellar coronae and driving of stellar winds.

For the GLAST Mission, the three selected proposals will receive a total of $10 million over the next two and one-half years to advance the state of the art in Gamma Ray detectors. GLAST will observe high energy gamma-rays from solar flares, supernovae and their remnants, pulsars, super-massive black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the annihilation relic of the Big Bang with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity.

The GLAST mission will require state-of-the-art tracking technology to permit unprecedented precision, a large field of view -- practically the full unocculted sky -- and a sensitivity sufficient to detect thousands of active galatic nuclei per year. By comparison, current spacecraft are capable of detecting only dozens of events per year. NASA is scheduled to start development of the GLAST Mission in 2002.

The technology development contracts will be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and include options based on actual funding availability and achievement of progress along the technology readiness level scale.

Additional information for the Constellation-X and GLAST Missions can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov , http://www701.gsfc.nasa.gov/glast/glast.htm.

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