3+-+7

**// Launch: //** April 24, 1990 from space shuttle Discovery (STS-31) **// Deployment: //** April 25, 1990 **// Mission Duration: //** Up to 20 years **// Servicing Mission 1: //** December 1993 **// Servicing Mission 2: //** February 1997 **// Servicing Mission 3A: //** December 1999 **// Servicing Mission 3B: //** February 2002 || NASA Current || Explorer 1 became the first satellite launched by the United States on January 31, 1958. Its main payload was a cosmic ray detector which discovered the Van Allen Radiation Belts. It was followed by four similar satellites, two of which were successful. || JPL Past || ESA's X-ray space observatory is the biggest scientific satellite ever built in Europe-- its telescope mirrors were amongst the most powerful ever developed, and with its sensitive cameras it will continue to see much more than any previous X-ray satellite. The mission has taken X-rays from accretion onto black holes, seen properties of exploding stars, the nature of exotic matter, and observations of GRB. || NASA Current || Formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, this mission is using infrared technology to study celestial objects that are too cool, too dust-enshrouded or too far away to otherwise be seen. Spitzer, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, are all part of NASA's Great Observatories Program. || JPL Current || *First NASA shuttle mission commanded by a woman *launched December 30, 1995 INTEGRAL RIGHT-CLICK on these links to "Open in a new window"
 * Category 7 – Space Telescopes **
 * Hubble
 * Explorer 1
 * XMM – Newton
 * Spitzer Space Telescope
 * Chandra
 * This shuttle can observe objects up to the secon they fall into a black hole
 * This shuttle can clearly see a stop sign at twelve miles away, this is how powerful it is. || NASA Current ||
 * Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE)
 * It has a time scale of a microsecond to a month.
 * used to measure the emition on X-ray waves from objects. || NASA Current ||
 * Has found that there are high-energy x-rays comming from a very rare star, Eta Carinae.
 * Has measured high powered x-rays commimg from a galixy cluster.
 * The Galixy is a giant partical exelerator. || NASA Current ||

JPL PAST Missions http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past_missions.cfm JPL CURRENT Missions http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/index.cfm NASA CURRENT Missions http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html