SPACEPHOTOS

(06/26/2001) -- At Launch Complex 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) spacecraft is encapsulated with the fairing. With one half already in place (right), the second half (left) moves into position. MAP is scheduled for launch on June 30 aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket. 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. The MAP instrument will be continuously shaded from the Sun, Earth, and Moon by the spacecraft