NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer satellite, or FUSE, is scheduled for launch on a Delta II rocket on Thursday, June 24, from Cape Canaveral in Florida. This astronomy satellite was developed and will be operated by scientists and engineers from Johns Hopkins. The spacecraft control center is located on the first floor of the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the Homewood campus.

In honor of this historic occasion, the JHU community, friends and children are invited to Bloomberg for a launch-day gathering, including live video of the launch to be shown in Schafler Auditorium and a reception with light refreshments to follow liftoff. Attendees are encouraged to bring their lunch.

Let's Do Launch, an informal event sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Maryland Space Grant Consortium, begins at 10 a.m., with launch scheduled for 11:39 a.m. Pre-launch commentary will begin at 10:45 a.m. Displays in the lobby area can be viewed throughout the morning.

Because of uncertainties in weather and launch conditions, everyone is strongly encouraged to check the launch conditions by calling 410-516-6525 or checking the FUSE Web site at http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu.

FUSE is a joint project of NASA and Hopkins in collaboration with Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (France), the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Colorado and the University of California, Berkeley.

The towering 3,000-pound satellite will test the Big Bang theory and collect the most complete observations yet of the Milky Way's mysterious star-making machinery.