The Space Infrared Telescope Facility will be launched at 1:37 amSaturday from Florida's Cape Canaveral using a Boeing Delta II rocket, the US space agency said Tuesday.

The 1.2-billion-dollar mission is part of a program that featured three earlier missions to study the universe with visible light, X-rays and gamma rays, using the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, according to NASA.

Researchers will use the new equipment to study "dusty discs" around certain stars, in the hope of discovering signs of life on other planets, NASA said.

The mission is expected to take up to five years.

SPACE.WIRE