KSC-01pp1173

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- At Launch Complex 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, workers keep watch while the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) is lowered into position on the Delta II rocket below. Launch of MAP via a Boeing Delta II rocket is scheduled for June 30. The launch will place MAP into a lunar-assisted trajectory to the Sun-Earth for a 27-month mission. The probe will measure small fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation to an accuracy of one millionth of a degree. These measurements should reveal the size, matter content, age, geometry and fate of the universe. They will also reveal the primordial structure that grew to form galaxies and will test ideas about the origins of these primordial structures

Date: 2001-06-19
Collection: KSC
Archive: NASA Image and Video Library
Type: photograph