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Last of the Great Observatories to Launch
jqpublic writes "The last in NASA's
Great Observatory Program, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is set to launch in the
wee hours on Monday. The launch can viewed live on NASA's Countdown web site. Interestingly, SIRTF will not be in Earth orbit, but will drift away from Earth by about 15 million kilometers per year. This allows the telescope to cool to very low temperatures (30K), which reduces dramatically the amount of cryogens it needs to carry."
But, I guess on a solar system scale, it's not exactly speeding, either
They will be announcing the name about 4 months after the launch. Can you imagine if they named it after Dr.Sagan and then it blew up and fell on Tampa and killed people? In 50 years the name "Sagan" would be associated with the tragedy, instead of the man.
Is HST the only Great Observatory being replaced?
You have to keep in mind that NASA depends on public funding, and that "the public", not to mention the current US president, have absolutely no clue about what counts as good science vs smoke and mirrors.
Hubble takes the most "pretty" pictures, thus people can ooh and aah over all the great "science" it does. Compton may have discovered features of our universe that blow away anything Hubble has done in terms of importance (such as the isotropism in GRBs), but how do you make that into a pretty picture? So, it gets axed, and we'll replace Hubble to create even more eye-candy for the public. Perhaps, if we get lucky, NASA can pad the budget on JW enough to launch a few "real" missions over its lifetime.
Hmm, reading that, I sound overly critical of Hubble - I don't mean to, I realize it serves a number of very useful and scientifically-valid purposes. I just see its popularity (and the answer to your question) as relating more to its flashyness than to its utility.