{"id":93408,"date":"2019-07-10T10:22:50","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T17:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/spacex-scores-nasa-contract-to-launch-black-hole-spacecraft"},"modified":"2019-07-10T10:22:50","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T17:22:50","slug":"spacex-scores-nasa-contract-to-launch-black-hole-spacecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/spacex-scores-nasa-contract-to-launch-black-hole-spacecraft","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Scores NASA Contract to Launch Black Hole Spacecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-scores-nasa-contract-to-launch-black-hole-spacecraft2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot directly image what\u2019s going on near objects like black holes and neutron stars, but studying the polarization of X-rays emitted from their surrounding environments reveals the physics of these enigmatic objects,\u201d Paul Hertz, director of NASA\u2019s astrophysics division, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/press-release\/nasa-selects-mission-to-study-black-holes-cosmic-x-ray-mysteries\/\">said in a statement<\/a> at the time. The project, he said, \u201cwill open a new window on the universe for astronomers to peer through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A preliminary launch date is set for April 2021 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A in Florida. It\u2019s unlikely it will take up the full payload of the rocket, as <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/spacex-wins-contract-to-launch-nasa-small-astrophysics-mission\/\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/SpaceNews.com\">SpaceNews.com<\/a><\/em> points out<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2019\/07\/08\/spacex-contracted-by-nasa-to-launch-black-hole-and-neutron-star-research-craft\/\">SpaceX contracted by NASA to launch black hole and neutron star research craft<\/a> [<em>TechCrunch<\/em>].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe cannot directly image what\u2019s going on near objects like black holes and neutron stars, but studying the polarization of X-rays emitted from their surrounding environments reveals the physics of these enigmatic objects,\u201d Paul Hertz, director of NASA\u2019s astrophysics division, said in a statement at the time. The project, he said, \u201cwill open a new [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,219,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-physics","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}