What is GLAST doing now?
Very early this morning the LAT and GBM flight computers were powered on and booted successfully. Later this morning, the process of turning on the LAT detectors will begin!
Eric Grove (NRL), is the LAT Commissioner, and he wrote this from the Mission Operations Center today:
As I type this, LAT power-up is underway! It’s an extremely exciting time. After so many years of concept development, design, construction, integration, and testing, and thanks to the effort of so many people on hardware and software, it’s simply extraordinary to see the LAT beginning to come to life on orbit.
The spacecraft is operating well, and instrument telemetry is starting to appear. In the next few days, the first instrument data will arrive at the LISOC at SLAC for processing, and we’ll all get to see how the LAT is operating in its new environment in orbit around the earth.
GLAST Education and Public Outreach efforts in Florida and Beyond
Professor Lynn Cominsky, from Sonoma State University in California, leads the GLAST Public Education and Outreach activities, and she shared the following:
After many months of designing, reviewing, printing and shipping, all of our hard work was enjoyed by over 600 guests at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex, where each person who checked in received a bag of GLAST materials. Aurore Simonnet was responsible for the beautiful design of all SSU’s products, and Aurore, Kamal Prasad and I personally stuffed over 400 bags at KSC. It was fun, because we got to see the “inside view of Guest Ops!”
Eight of GLAST’s Educator Ambassadors (EAs) were able to travel to KSC for launch week, and enjoyed touring KSC as well as helping with our teachers’ workshops. Dave Thompson (GSFC) and I did a one-hour workshop for over 30 pre-service teachers on Friday June 6, at the KSC Education Center. It was recorded for future broadcast on NASA’s Education Channel. On Saturday June 7, SSU staff Kamal and Kevin John, and a few of our EAs helped me do a three-hour workshop for over 20 in-service teachers at KSC. It featured hands-on activities from the Active Galaxies Educator’s guide and pop-up book, as well as a “Make Your Own Pulsar” activity from our newly released Supernova Educator’s Guide. All GLAST classroom materials can be downloaded from here.
And last but not least, launch marked the occasion for unveiling a new look for the SSU group’s main web site. Enjoy!
Coming up…
Further status reports on instrument activation. Later tonight the GBM detectors will begin powering on.