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Last of the Great Observatories to Launch

Posted by michael on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

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."

2 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. It's new name... by Lendrick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Generally, they name these observatories after famous deceased astronomers. I'm betting they'll call this one the Sagan Telescope, or somesuch.

  2. Retrolaunchers - the better way by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If we still had the Saturn V or the Proton, launching these would be easier and cheaper.

    As some astronomer pointed out at the time, the repair mission for the Hubble cost more than all the proposed ground-based observatories put together, like the Very Large Telescope and the California Extremely Large Telescope.

    NASA - The government version of Hollywood.