I can’t wait until data starts streaming back from this device. Prepare for an unprecedented view of the universe …

A week after launch, NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, is safely up-and-running well in orbit approximately 350 miles (565 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.

GLAST was successfully launched aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 12:05 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 11.

For four weeks, engineers will continue to be busy around the clock turning on and checking out the various components on the spacecraft. “Things are looking good so far,” said GLAST Deputy Project Scientist Julie McEnery from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “We expect to turn the instruments on in about a week, and we can’t wait to see the first gamma rays!”

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/nsfc-gsi061908.php