SIRTF Telescope Shipped From Ball Aerospace

SPACE SCOPES

SIRTF Telescope Shipped From Ball

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. engineers inspect SIRTF�s cryogenic telescope assembly.

Boulder - Feb 25, 2002
The SIRTF telescope, the fourth and last of NASA's Great Observatories, was shipped last week from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, Calif., for integration with the spacecraft.

The Cryogenic Telescope Assembly and two of the Great Observatory's three science instruments, the Infrared Spectrograph and the Multiband Imaging Photometer, were built by Ball Aerospace for the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF).

The innovative Cryogenic Telescope Assembly cooling system provides the low temperature of 1.8 degrees above absolute zero (-456 degrees Fahrenheit) required for sensitive observations by the three instruments.

SIRTF will observe objects from the outer solar system to the most luminous known galaxies in the farthest reaches of space. It consists of a 0.85-meter telescope and three instruments capable of performing imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

By studying the infrared thermal energy emitted by distant objects in the universe, astronomers gain significant knowledge of how the universe was formed and how it is changing. SIRTF provides a significant improvement over previous space infrared telescopes, which include the Infrared Astronomy Satellite built by Ball Aerospace in 1983.

SIRTF's lifetime requirement is two-and-a-half years, with a goal of five-plus years that current estimates show should be achieved. It is slated for launch from Cape Canaveral in January 2003 as part of NASA's Origins Program, which seeks to answer the question: Where do we come from and are we alone?

SIRTF follows NASA's other three Great Observatories: the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Ball Aerospace has had a significant role in all four Great Observatories.

INTERNET SPACE

Astrophysics Goes Virtual In European Digital Universe

Paris (ESA) Dec 5, 2001
A new European initiative called the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) is being launched to provide astronomers with a breathtaking potential for new discoveries. It will enable them to seamlessly combine the data from both ground- and space-based telescopes which are making observations of the Universe across the whole range of wavelengths - from high-energy gamma rays through the ultraviolet and visible to the infrared and radio.

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