Mar 17 1981
From The Space Library
NASA announced the selection of scientific instruments to be flown on the Gamma-Ray Observatory scheduled for launch from the Space Shuttle in 1988. Produced from the most energetic processes in the universe, gamma rays were the most direct source of knowledge about these processes.
Gamma rays to be measured by the observatory would begin at 100,000 electron volts (100 Kev) and continue up to several hundred million electron volts (100 Mev or more).
The instruments chosen were a transient-event monitor to detect short intense bursts of gamma rays of unknown origin and localize them to determine their distribution in the galaxy; a high-energy gamma-ray telescope that could measure the energy spectra and arrival directions of the highest-energy gamma rays it finds; an imaging Compton telescope to obtain gamma-ray maps of the celestial sphere at medium energies; and a low-energy gamma-ray spectrometer to look for evidence of nucleosynthesis in supernovas.
The observatory, with a planned 2-year lifetime would be one of the largest every orbited, weighing 23,000 pounds (10,432-kilograms) and measuring 25 feet (7.6 meters) in length and 12.5 feet (3.8 meters) in diameter. (NASA Release 81-40)
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