MAP Spacecraft Arrives At KSC To Begin Launch Preparations

SPACE SCIENCE

Among the questions MAP will attempt to answer: How old is the universe? How and when did the first galaxies form? Will the universe expand forever or will it collapse? How rapidly is the universe expanding?

Launch is currently targeted to occur on June 30 at 4 p.m. EDT.

KSC - April 24, 2001
NASA's Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) arrived today at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The spacecraft will undergo final readiness preparations for its upcoming launch this summer aboard a Boeing Delta II launch vehicle.

Using a scanning method, MAP will make an accurate, precise, full sky picture of cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang. MAP seeks to answer fundamental questions about the formation and fate of the universe.

Upon arrival at Kennedy Space Center, MAP was taken to the Spacecraft and Encapsulation Facility-2 (SAEF-2), a payload processing facility located in the KSC Industrial Area.

Several milestones must be completed while MAP is at SAEF-2 including antenna installations, solar array installation, solar array deployment and illumination testing, a spacecraft comprehensive performance test, fueling with hydrazine propellant, and a spin balance test.

MAP will then be ready for integration with the solid propellant Payload Assist Module upper stage booster.

MAP is scheduled to be transported from SAEF-2 to Space Launch Complex 17 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station June 19 where it will be hoisted atop the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle at Pad 17-B.

The protective fairing will be installed around the spacecraft on June 26. Launch is currently targeted to occur on June 30 at 4 p.m. EDT.

SPACE SCIENCE

Was The Big Bang A Big Bump

London - April 15, 2001
It was mighty quiet in our Universe: devoid of all matter and energy. Then another universe collided with it. Suddenly space became a searing soup of particles and radiation, far hotter and denser than the centre of the Sun.

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