USU/SDL's WIRE program manager Harry Ames said SDL engineers discovered a previously undocumented and intermittent power up irregularity in the operation of a commercial integrated circuit used in the telescope.

When WIRE's power was switched on during the satellite's first orbit, the integrated circuit caused a power surge that lasted just one fortieth of a second, but was probably sufficient to release explosive bolts securing the telescope's cover.

As a result, the cover was released before the spacecraft had stabilized in orbit and sunlight fell on the instrument's cryostat � an insulated container of frozen hydrogen used to cool the telescope.

The spacecraft's instability was then compounded when hydrogen gases from WIRE's cooling system were released too rapidly. The entire supply of frozen hydrogen was exhausted before the spacecraft could be brought under control.

USU/SDL Executive Vice President Frank Redd, who chaired SDL's WIRE review board, said such operating glitches are routinely documented when they are discovered and reports of any problems accompany parts when they are purchased. The problem WIRE engineers discovered has now been documented and appropriate alerts added to literature for future users, Redd said.

WIRE was to have detected infrared light, wavelengths that are not visible to humans, but are felt as heat. Infrared instruments "see" only when their own heat does not obscure the view, requiring cooling to temperatures more than 400 degrees below zero to allow them to operate in the very cold environment of space.

The WIRE spacecraft is now stable in orbit with all its systems and electronics working well, and NASA is using the spacecraft to study ways of controlling and maneuvering satellites. However, without the frozen hydrogen, WIRE is unable to complete its primary astronomy mission.

"The instruments are all working, but we can't see anything," Ames said. "The circuit that caused the problem is very commonly used. We've used it many times before and it hasn't been a problem in systems for computing and other tasks. The anomaly occurs so intermittently and fast that it went undetected during multiple tests at SDL, and Goddard Space Flight Center before the launch."

The super-cooled telescope in NASA's Small Explorers Program, was too have looked at infrared light coming from deep space, helping astronomers understand more about the formation of stars, galaxies and current state of the universe.

Though unable to complete the primary mission, Ames said the WIRE mission has proven some significant technological "firsts" that are now a direct inheritance to other NASA and Department of Defense space missions. For example, the first flight of a two-stage solid hydrogen cryogenic cooling system.

Data gathered on WIRE's first orbit shows that it would have provided better than expected performance, Ames said. The mission also marked the first successful launch operation and orbit injection of a cryogenically cooled instrument on a PEGASUS rocket dropped from an airplane. The instrument was launched March 4 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA.