Delta II Launches NASA's GLAST Telescope

A Delta II rocket carried NASA's GLAST payload into space today, beginning a new chapter in gamma-ray detecting space telescopes for the 21st century.

Launch occurred at 12:05 pm EDT today, from Launch Pad 17-B under beautiful weather here at Cape Canaveral Air Station. GLAST, also known as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, had a successful ride to orbit. Over the next few weeks, the crafts systems will begin to come alive and run through check-outs as it receives power from it's solar arrays.

Click to watch the launch video:

According to NASA's JPL, GLAST's Large Area Telescope is a 3-ton detector with almost a million channels of electronics, but it uses less than half the power of a hair dryer.