NASA will launch a new telescope designed to observe distant galaxies on a suborbital sounding rocket at 1 a.m. EDT, May 11, from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The observations will be conducted using the FORTIS (Far-ultraviolet Off Rowland-circle Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy) spectro/telescope developed at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Stephan McCandliss, principal investigator for the mission, said, "The goal of FORTIS is to explore the mysteries of escaping of ultraviolet radiation from the dusty confines of galaxies, using a new type of spectro/telescope with more than six times the sensitivity of our previous experiments. FORTIS can acquire spectra from forty-three individual targets simultaneously, and autonomously, within an angular region as large as the diameter of the moon (1/2 degree)."

FORTIS is to fly on a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket to an altitude of about 173 miles, providing approximately 360 seconds of exo-atmospheric observation time for FORTIS.

The experiment will land via parachute approximately 50 miles from the launch site where it will be recovered. The total mission time is approximately 900 seconds from launch to landing.