NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer in Standby Mode

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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-034

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer in Standby Mode
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 07, 2012

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, or Galex, was placed in standby mode
today as engineers prepare to end mission operations, nearly nine years
after the telescope's launch. The spacecraft is scheduled to be
decommissioned -- taken out of service -- later this year. The mission
extensively mapped large portions of the sky with sharp ultraviolet
vision, cataloguing millions of galaxies spanning 10 billion years of
cosmic time.

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer launched into space from a Pegasus XL
rocket in April of 2003. Since completing its prime mission in the fall
of 2007, the mission was extended to continue its census of stars and
galaxies.

The mission's science highlights include the discovery of a gigantic
comet-like tail behind a speeding star, rings of new stars around old
galaxies, and "teenager" galaxies, which help to explain how galaxies
evolve. The observatory also helped confirm the existence of the
mysterious substance or force known as dark energy, and even caught a
black hole devouring a star.

The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., leads the
Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science
operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in
Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. The
mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program, managed by the
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers sponsored by
Yonsei University in South Korea and the Centre National d'Etudes
Spatiales (CNES) in France collaborated on this mission. Caltech manages
JPL for NASA.

Graphics and additional information about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer
are online at http://www.nasa.gov/galex/ and http://www.galex.caltech.edu/ .