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            "title": "A-STEP’s AstroPix Detectors Get Ready for Flight",
            "description": "Scientists and engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have been preparing a new gamma-ray detector called AstroPix for an upcoming rocket payload called A-STEP (AstroPix Sounding Rocket Technology dEmonstration Payload).Each detector contains four silicon sensors, and each sensor incorporates 1,225 pixels. A-STEP will carry a three-detector stack to the edge of space on the SubTEC-10 sounding rocket, which will launch in 2025 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The flight’s primary goal is to successfully operate the detectors, with a secondary goal of measuring the rate of impacts from cosmic rays, high-energy particles from space. || ",
            "release_date": "2024-10-21T14:00:00-04:00",
            "update_date": "2024-10-21T08:55:52.712164-04:00",
            "main_image": {
                "id": 1103099,
                "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014700/a014705/ASTEP_Detector-1_print.jpg",
                "filename": "ASTEP_Detector-1_print.jpg",
                "media_type": "Image",
                "alt_text": "An AstroPix detector rests inside a protective tray in a lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The squares in the center are silicon pixel sensors designed to detect gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. They function similarly to the image sensors in cell phones. There are two more under the rectangular copper bus bar, which carries data from the sensors to rest of the A-STEP system. Gamma rays are sufficiently high energy that they will pass through the bar and interact in the silicon below. \rCredit: NASA/Sophia Roberts\r\rAlt text: An AstroPix detector rests on a blue lab bench inside a tray. \r\rImage description: What looks like a large computer chip — an AstroPix detector — rests inside an orange-and-white tray set on a blue lab bench.  The detector is green and has two reflective squares in the middle with a long copper rectangle at left parallel to them. The copper rectangle covers two additional reflective squares. On its right side, black wires extend out of frame. A piece of electrical equipment with various knobs is visible at the top of the image, and a strip of black-and-yellow tape is visible at bottom left. \r",
                "width": 1024,
                "height": 683,
                "pixels": 699392
            }
        }
    ],
    "sources": [],
    "products": [],
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    "older_versions": [],
    "alternate_versions": []
}