NASA to Hold GLAST Pre-Launch News Briefing

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center will hold a teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT,
Tuesday, May 27, for a science and mission status briefing on NASA's upcoming
Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission. Reporters should contact
Robert Naeye at 301-286-4453 by noon on May 27, for dial-in information.

GLAST, NASA's new gamma-ray observatory, will open a wide new window on the
universe. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, and the gamma-ray
sky is spectacularly different from what we perceive with our own eyes. With a
huge leap in all key capabilities, GLAST data will enable scientists to answer
persistent questions across a broad range of topics, including supermassive
black hole systems, pulsars, the origin of cosmic rays, and searches for
signatures of new physics.

The briefing participants are:
-- Lynn Cominsky, GLAST education and public outreach, Sonoma State
University, Rohnert Park, Calif.
-- Steve Ritz, GLAST project scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
-- David Thompson, GLAST deputy project scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center
-- Peter Michelson, Large Area Telescope (LAT) principal investigator,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
-- Charles "Chip" Meegan, GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) principal investigator,
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

NASA's GLAST mission is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership,
developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, along with
important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.

For teleconference slides and biographies, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/L7_telecon_main.html

For more information about the GLAST mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/glast

/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- May 20/

SOURCE NASA

J.D. Harrington, NASA Headquarters, Washington, +1-202-358-5241,
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov, or Rob Gutro, +1-301-286-4044,
Robert.J.Gutro@nasa.gov / Robert Naeye, +1-301-286-4453,
Robert.P.Naeye@nasa.gov, both of Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.;
or Lynn Cominsky of Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif.,
+1-707-664-2655, lynnc@universe.sonoma.edu