You can re-name the GLAST space telescope for NASA

William Atkins
Saturday, 09 February 2008 20:05

Science - Space

NASA is asking for suggestions from the peoples of Earth on a new name for its Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope.        

Officials with NASA announced on February 8, 2008, that its Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, needs a new name. Its press release stated that the new name for GLAST "Will capture the excitement of GLAST's mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy."

GLAST is a future space-based gamma-ray telescope whose mission is to explore the high-energy portion of the universe. It will study such high-energy objects and phenomenon as dark matter, pulsars, and other high-energy sources found, or suspected, in the universe.

The GLAST project is a joint program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Department of Energy, and the space agencies of France (CNES, Centre National d'Études Spatiales), Germany (DLR, German Aerospace Center or Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt e.V.), Italy (ASI, Italian Space Agency or Agenzia Spaziale Italiana), Japan (JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Sweden (Swedish National Space Board or Rymdstyrelsen).

GLAST is scheduled to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on May 16, 2008. It will be launched into low-Earth circular orbit from a Delta-7920H-10C launch vehicle (rocket). It will have an average altitude of 342 miles (550 kilometers) with an inclination of about 28.5 degrees.

NASA regularly names its telescopes while they are being designed and constructed, and then renames them when they are launched into space.

For instance, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SITF) was renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope after Dr. Lyman Spitzer Jr. (1914-1997), an American theoretical physicist who helped to establish the fundamentals of the physics of plasma and the astrophysics with respect to the interstellar medium.

NASA had a naming contest for the Spitzer Telescope. Over 7,000 names (and essays) from around the world were suggested. In the end, Jay Stidolph, a Canadian from Fort Nelson, British Columbia, submitted the winning entry. See the press release “NASA Announces New Name For Space Infrared Telescope Facility”.

The widely popular Hubble Space Telescope was originally (in 1969) called the Large Space Telescope. It was later renamed the Hubble Space Telescope after American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953).

For more information and to enter the contest, please go to the NASA webpage “Name that Space Telescope!” at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/08feb_namethattelescope.htm?list970856.

Or, go directly to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Sonoma State University "Name That Satellite" website at
http://glast.sonoma.edu/glastname/.

The "Name that Space Telescope" article is copied on the next page.