NASA to conduct first rocket launch from Australia's private launch site today

NASA, on June 26, will launch its first of three suborbital sounding rockets from Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory. This would mark the space agency's first rocket launch from a private spaceport outside of the US. According to NASA, the sounding rocket would liftoff at 7:14 pm (IST) with the X-ray Quantum Calorimeter (XQC) developed by the University of Wisconsin.

What is the launch about?

The XQC is a device that is being launched to find the source of mysterious X-rays spread all across our universe. NASA explains that the void between two stars appears completely dark to us viewers from Earth but X-ray views reveal a gamut of activities going on in deep space. With XQC, scientists aim to determine the source of the X-rays, in what would be the instrument's seventh and final trip to space aboard a NASA suborbital rocket.

According to NASA, XQC will observe a patch of X-ray light with 50 times better energy resolution than ever before, key to revealing its source. This device will be located outside of the Earth's atmosphere because the atmosphere absorbs a majority of the X-rays. "This is an exploration with a new capability – we want to see what we can see,” astronomer Dan McCammon said in a statement. "Every time we look at the X-ray sky with a new capability, it turns out to be more complicated that we supposed". 

Other NASA missions from Australia

The second mission, on July 4, is to launch the SISTINE (Suborbital Imaging Spectrograph for Transition region Irradiance from Nearby Exoplanet host stars) which has been developed by the University of Colorado, Boulder. SISTINE will study how ultraviolet light from stars affects the atmospheres of orbiting planets, including their gases thought to be signs of life.

The final mission is the DEUCE (Dual-channel Extreme Ultraviolet Continuum Experiment) on July 12, also by Colorado, Boulder, to measure the extreme ultraviolet light spectrum of the aforementioned stars. "These measurements are needed to model stars similar and smaller than our Sun, as well as understand their effects on planetary atmospheres", NASA said in a statement.