The Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft lifts off from Pad 17A, CCAS

[KSC-97PC-1292]

  • Photo Number: KSC-97PC-1292

  • Release Date: 25-Aug-1997

    • Description: A Boeing Delta II expendable launch vehicle lifts off with NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) observatory at 10:39 a.m. EDT, on Aug. 25, 1997, from Launch Complex 17A, Cape Canaveral Air Station. This is the second Delta launch under the Boeing name and the first from Cape Canaveral. Launch was scrubbed one day by Air Force range safety personnel because two commercial fishing vessels were within the Delta's launch danger area. The ACE spacecraft will study low-energy particles of solar origin and high-energy galactic particles on its one-million-mile journey. The collecting power of instruments aboard ACE is 10 to 1,000 times greater than anything previously flown to collect similar data by NASA. Study of these energetic particles may contribute to our understanding of the formation and evolution of the solar system. ACE has a two-year minimum mission lifetime and a goal of five years of service. ACE was built for NASA by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and is managed by the Explorer Project Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The lead scientific institution is the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif.

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    Thumbnail GIF 79 100 11956
    Slide GIF 121 156 27464
    Low GIF 189 240 64935
    Medium JPEG 606 768 67169
    High JPEG 1800 2280 675220

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    Last Updated: Tuesday August 28 16:04:42 EDT 2001 (Kay Grinter)

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