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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. --- At Pad 17-B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a second solid rocket booster is raised from its transporter. The booster will join the first booster lifted into the mobile service tower for mating with the Delta II rocket to launch NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, spacecraft. A series of nine strap-on solid rocket motors will help power the first stage. The GLAST is a powerful space observatory that will explore the Universe's ultimate frontier, where nature harnesses forces and energies far beyond anything possible on Earth; probe some of science's deepest questions, such as what our Universe is made of, and search for new laws of physics; explain how black holes accelerate jets of material to nearly light speed; and help crack the mystery of stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. Launch is currently planned for May 16 from Pad 17-B. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. --- At Pad 17-B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a second solid rocket booster is raised from its transporter. The booster will join the first booster lifted into the mobile service tower for mating with the Delta II rocket to launch NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, spacecraft. A series of nine strap-on solid rocket motors will help power the first stage. The GLAST is a powerful space observatory that will explore the Universe's ultimate frontier, where nature harnesses forces and energies far beyond anything possible on Earth; probe some of science's deepest questions, such as what our Universe is made of, and search for new laws of physics; explain how black holes accelerate jets of material to nearly light speed; and help crack the mystery of stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. Launch is currently planned for May 16 from Pad 17-B. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis