SIRTF, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility

Author

Simmons, Larry L.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

971

Abstract

The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is the last of the NASA Great Observatories, and a cornerstone of the NASA Origins Missions. The Observatory will include an 85 cm telescope in a unique orbit around the Sun. The telescope wild be launched at ambient temperature and cooled to 5.5 K in space. The science instruments will use large detector arrays that will be background limited and capable of a broad range of astrophysical investigations. The SIRTF architecture will accommodate up to 5 years of cryogenic space operations. This talk will describe both the scientific and technical capabilities of SIRTF

Keywords

astronomical photometry; astronomical telescopes; cryostats; infrared astronomy; infrared imaging; 5.5 K; 85 cm; Cassegrain telescope; IR array camera; IR spectrograph; NASA Origins Missions; SIRTF observatory; Space Infrared Telescope Facility; Sun orbit; background limited; cryogenic space operations; cryostat; ground system; large detector arrays; multiband imaging photometer; pointing; pre-launch tests; science instruments; scientific capabilities; technical capabilities; Detectors; Instruments; NASA; Observatories; Sensor arrays; Space cooling; Space missions; Sun; Telescopes; Temperature;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 1999. IMTC/99. Proceedings of the 16th IEEE

Conference_Location

Venice

ISSN

1091-5281

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5276-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMTC.1999.777006

Filename

777006