Space Telescopes

Patrick H. Stakem
Number 22 of the Space Series

(c) 2018, 2022

Number 22 in the Space Series

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................7
Author............................................................................................10
Why Space Telescopes?.................................................................13
Exploration.....................................................................................13
The Drake Equation.......................................................................20
Sensors and Detectors....................................................................22
Radiant energy sensing and measurement............................23
Star Sensors .........................................................................24
The Stars, our Galaxy and others, the Universe, and all that. .......26
Astronomy......................................................................................26
Our solar system – what is there to observe?.................................26
Sun........................................................................................27
Mercury................................................................................27
Venus....................................................................................28
Earth.....................................................................................28
Near Earth Objects...............................................................29
Mars......................................................................................29
The Asteroid Belt..................................................................30
Jupiter...................................................................................31
Saturn....................................................................................31
Uranus...................................................................................31
Neptune.................................................................................32
Pluto and beyond..................................................................32
Kuiper Belt...........................................................................33
Dwarf Planets.......................................................................34
Comets..................................................................................34
The stars ...............................................................................35
From somewhere else...........................................................38
Exoplanets............................................................................39
Space Weather................................................................................41
Astronomy Missions......................................................................42
Airborne Observatory....................................................................43
NASA's Astronomy satellites.........................................................45
HETE-2.................................................................................46

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Swift ....................................................................................47
Fermi ....................................................................................48
Uhuru....................................................................................48
Small Astronomy Satellite, SAS-2.......................................48
OAO.....................................................................................49
OSO......................................................................................50
HEAO...................................................................................50
IRAS.....................................................................................51
Infrared Telescope in Space..................................................51
NuSTAR...............................................................................52
RXTE ...................................................................................52
WISE....................................................................................53
Astro.....................................................................................54
COBE...................................................................................55
AMS.....................................................................................56
SHIELDS..............................................................................57
WMAP..................................................................................57
Sampex.................................................................................58
IBEX.....................................................................................58
SDO......................................................................................59
Ulysses..................................................................................60
IXPE.....................................................................................61
UVC......................................................................................61
IUE.......................................................................................62
EUVE...................................................................................63
IRIS.......................................................................................63
GALEX.................................................................................64
CHIPS...................................................................................64
FUSE....................................................................................65
Wfirst....................................................................................65
Parker Solar Probe................................................................66
RHESSI................................................................................67
SWAS...................................................................................68
WIRE....................................................................................68
WIND...................................................................................69
Alexis (LANL).....................................................................69
Radio Astronomy Explorer...................................................69

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 POLAR.................................................................................70
MSX.....................................................................................70
Particle Detection...........................................................................72
NASA's Great Observatories.........................................................72
CGRO...................................................................................73
Chandra.................................................................................74
Spitzer...................................................................................75
HST.......................................................................................76
JWST....................................................................................80
Other Life in our Solar System?....................................................82
Non-NASA Space Telescopes........................................................86
Euclid ...................................................................................86
Solar orbiter 2020 ................................................................87
Brite Constellation................................................................87
USSR Missions..............................................................................87
Proton...................................................................................87
Gamma.................................................................................87
Relikt-1.................................................................................88
JAXA (Japan).................................................................................88
GAP ....................................................................................88
Suzaku .................................................................................88
Hisaki (Sprint-A)..................................................................88
Infrared Telescope in Space .................................................88
XRISM.................................................................................88
GAP .....................................................................................88
Hisaki (Sprint-A) was launched in 2013..............................89
Astro.....................................................................................89
HALCA................................................................................89
Astrosat.................................................................................89
NEOSSat...............................................................................90
MOST...................................................................................90
Orion-1 and -2......................................................................90
Astron ..................................................................................90
ESA missions.................................................................................90
Herschel................................................................................90
COS-B..................................................................................91
Gaia.......................................................................................91

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 XMM-Newton......................................................................91
Hershel..................................................................................91
COROT.................................................................................92
INTA.....................................................................................92
BeppoSAX............................................................................92
JAXA (Japan).......................................................................92
Astro.....................................................................................93
Spektr-R................................................................................93
Mikhailo Lomonosov...........................................................93
Astron ..................................................................................94
Integral..................................................................................94
Hipparcos..............................................................................94
ANS......................................................................................94
ISO........................................................................................94
COROT.................................................................................95
XMM-Newton......................................................................95
LEGRI..................................................................................95
Rosat.....................................................................................95
ABRIXAS.............................................................................95
Exosat...................................................................................95
Pamela..................................................................................96
Agile ...................................................................................97
Kaisat-4.................................................................................97
Odin......................................................................................97
Corsa and Corsa-b................................................................97
Ariel Program.......................................................................98
HXMT..................................................................................98
LISA Pathfinder....................................................................99
DAMPE................................................................................99
SRON...................................................................................99
ABRIXAS.............................................................................99
ESA/Swiss Space Agency Cheops.......................................99
Some Planned Missions.................................................................99
Observatories on the Moon..........................................................102
International Lunar Observatory .......................................103
Virtual Observatories..........................................................104
Search for Exoplanets..................................................................104

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 Kepler.................................................................................105
TESS...................................................................................106
Waypoint-1.........................................................................106
International Lunar Observatory Association.....................107
XpoSat................................................................................107
Aryabhata...........................................................................107
Proposed space telescopes...........................................................107
Toliman ..............................................................................108
Plato....................................................................................108
LiteBire...............................................................................108
Wrap-up.......................................................................................109
Glossary of Terms........................................................................110
Bibliography................................................................................125
Resources.....................................................................................129
If you enjoyed this book, you might also be interested in some of
these.............................................................................................132

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Introduction
This book covers the topic of Telescopes in Space.
Observation of the night sky's started way before
Civilization. Early humans looked at all the lights in the
sky, saw that some moved, and some were fixed. What
did it all mean?
When we say telescope, we visualize a metal tube with
lens of mirror. In Fact, that is for the visual spectrum, but
telescopes can observe in the lower frequency's (infrared)
or higher frequency's (ultraviolet). In fact, they might
observe particles such as electrons or protons.
The initial assumption was that the Earth was the center
of the Universe, and everything traveled around it. But,
by observations, some “heavenly bodies” wander about
in the sky, and increasingly complex theories were
developed to address this. Later, when the Earth was
dethroned as the center of the universe, it was understood
that other planets and the Earth were in orbit around the
Sun. And, the Sun was just another star, like those that
could be seen in the night sky.

Early civilizations such as the Babylonians, Chinese,

Greeks, Egyptians, the Maya, and many more kept
detailed records of the movement of the celestial bodies,
in order to develop a theory about what it all meant. With
enough data, eclipses and lunar phases could be
predicted. The North Star, or the Southern Cross could be
used for navigation. Calendars could be produced, and
the phases of the moon understood. You knew when to

7
plant crops, and when to harvest them. In Egypt, you
knew when the Nile inundation would come. No more
guess work. The learned classes or the priesthood
understood these phenomena, and were making sense of
the world. Well, they still thought the Earth was flat, and
the center of the Universe, but their models worked well
enough for civilization to advance.
When you look through a telescope at a distant object,
you are looking back in time. You are seeing the light that
left the object a long time ago. Atmospheric distortion is
a problem, partially addressed by adaptive optics.
The latest approach is to put the telescopes in space,
beyond the interference of the atmosphere. Now we can
see more clearly, and farther. The atmosphere not only
causes scintillation, but filters higher frequencies such as
the ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma rays. It we want to see
in these wavelengths, we need to get up above the
atmosphere. Essentially, the atmosphere has “windows”
in the optical and radio frequencies. Using high altitude
aircraft and balloon-borne telescopes is only a partial
solution.
This book discusses around 100 astronomy missions. It is
probably not comprehensive. The discussions are sparse,
only covering the basic details. The good news is, all of
these missions are in archives on the internet, starting
with the NASA sites. This information is included in the
resources section, at the end. The really good news is,
most of the data from these missions are also archived in
open repositories.
There is no particular order to the missions discussed. I

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have tried to group missions by objective, but that is not
always possible, as some missions observe in multiple
regions of the spectrum.
Looking at this as a whole, it is interesting how much
time and effort have been put into these projects. Once
we get a good view, beyond the atmosphere, we start
tackling the big picture issues. The biggest one is, are we
alone in this Universe?
Earth-based telescopes have the problem that they have
to look through the atmosphere. One way to solve that is
to put them in orbit. This was suggested in 1923 by
Hermann Oberth.
It also depends on the state of the atmosphere. Radio
telescopes, working at lower frequencies than the IR,
visible light, or UV telescopes, work fine on Earth, but
have to be located in a relatively radio-quiet zone.
Examples are the National Radio Astronomy Telescope
in Greenbank, WV and the radio telescope at Aricebo,
Porto Rico. This was constructed in the 1960's, in a large
natural sinkhole. It is one thousand feet in diameter, and
was the largest such facility in the world for 50 years.
The Chinese have since built a larger one. The Arecibo
facility is listed on the U. S. National Register of Historic
Places. It does have a visitor's center. It can also serve as
a transmitter,
This book covers the descriptions and missions of NASA
telescope missions, and describes some upcoming ones.
It includes missions in which other entities collaborated
with NASA, but does not include other countries or non-
US organizations' efforts. This is not discriminatory, but

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just an effort to reduce the size of this book. I may cover
those efforts in a follow-on book. This edition was
updated after the successful launch of JWST.
A large set of definitions and acronyms are presented.
You can't fly an astrophysics mission without a good
acronym.
All of the material in this book was derived from non-
ITAR, open sources.

Author
The Author received his first telescope while in grade
school, and was hooked on exploring space from then on.
Mr. Patrick H. Stakem has been fascinated by the space
program since the Vanguard launches in 1957. He
received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering
from Carnegie-Mellon University, and Masters Degrees
in Physics and Computer Science from the Johns
Hopkins University. At Carnegie, he worked with a group
of undergraduate students to re-assemble, modify, and
operate a surplus missile guidance computer, which was
later donated to the Smithsonian. He was brought up in
the mainframe era, and was taught to never trust a
computer you could lift.
He began his career in Aerospace with Fairchild
Industries on the ATS-6 (Applications Technology
Satellite-6) program, a communication satellite that
developed much of the technology for the TDRSS
(Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System). He followed
the ATS-6 Program through its operational phase, and
worked on other projects at NASA’s Goddard Space

10
Flight Center including the Hubble Space Telescope, the
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), the Solar
Maximum Mission (SMM), some of the Landsat
missions, and Shuttle. He was posted to NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for Mars-Jupiter-Saturn (MJS-
77), which later became the Voyager mission, and which
is still operating and returning data from outside the solar
system at this writing. He initiated and lead the
international Flight Linux Project for NASA's Earth
Sciences Technology Office. He is the recipient of the
Shuttle Program Manager's Commendation Award, and
has completed 42 NASA Certification courses. He has
two NASA Group Achievement Awards, and the Apollo-
Soyuz Test Program Award.

Mr. Stakem was affiliated with the Whiting School of

Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University since 2007.
He supported the Summer Engineering Bootcamp
Projects at Goddard Space Flight Center for 2 years.
These resulted in the Greenland Rover, a tracked robot
measuring the depth of the ice sheet.

Mr. Patrick H. Stakem has been fascinated by the space

program since the Vanguard launches in 1957. He
received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering
from Carnegie-Mellon University, and Masters Degrees
in Physics and Computer Science from the Johns
Hopkins University. At Carnegie, he worked with a group
of undergraduate students to re-assemble, modify, and
operate a surplus missile guidance computer, which was
later donated to the Smithsonian. He was brought up in

11
the mainframe era, and was taught to never trust a
computer you could lift.
He began his career in Aerospace with Fairchild
Industries on the ATS-6 (Applications Technology
Satellite-6) program, a communication satellite that
developed much of the technology for the TDRSS
(Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System). He followed
the ATS-6 Program through its operational phase, and
worked on other projects at NASA’s Goddard Space
Flight Center including the Hubble Space Telescope, the
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), the Solar
Maximum Mission (SMM), some of the Landsat
missions, and Shuttle. He was posted to NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for Mars-Jupiter-Saturn (MJS-
77), which later became the Voyager mission, and which
is still operating and returning data from outside the solar
system at this writing. He initiated and lead the
international Flight Linux Project for NASA's Earth
Sciences Technology Office. He is the recipient of the
Shuttle Program Manager's Commendation Award, and
has completed 42 NASA Certification courses. He has
two NASA Group Achievement Awards, and the Apollo-
Soyuz Test Program Award.

Mr. Stakem was affiliated with the Whiting School of

Engineering of the Johns Hopkins University since 2007.
He supported the Summer Engineering Bootcamp
Projects at Goddard Space Flight Center for 2 years.
These resulted in the Greenland Rover, a tracked robot
measuring the depth of the ice sheet.

12
Now he supports International collaborative open-source
projects, and STEM Programs.

Mr. Stakem can be found on LinkedIn. Comments,

corrections, suggestions are appreciated.

Why Space Telescopes?

Earth's atmosphere limits and interferes with light
coming through it. Our generated pollution is not helping
any. We have seen about all we can see in our
neighborhood (solar system) but we want to know more
about other neighborhoods. Sometimes, we need two or
more similtaneous observations from different locations.

Exploration
Exploration from Earth orbit takes two forms, looking
down are the weather guys, and the climate guys.
Looking up are the Astrophysicists. This book is about
looking up, trying to make sense of our solar system,
galaxy, and universe. We want to be warned of and avoid
extinction events. We want to know if we are unique, or
have neighbors.
Astronomy dates back far in the history of mankind,
starting with observations of the sky, and the
development of theories of what it all meant, and how it
all worked. The initial assumption was that the Earth was
the center of the Universe, and everything traveled
around it. But, by observations, some “heavenly bodies”
wander about in the sky, and increasingly complex
theories were developed to address this. Later, when the

13
Earth was dethroned as the center of the universe, it was
understood that other planets and the Earth were in orbit
around the Sun. And, the Sun was just another star, like
those that could be seen in the night sky.

A lot of exploration takes place from Earth-based

observatories, in the optical and radio frequencies. These
observatories have to look through the atmosphere,
which is blurry. But, the method has been used for
thousands of years, and many major discoveries have
been made. Another giant leap was made when
photography replaced direct observation through the
telescopes. Wouldn't it be better if we could put the
telescope in space? Why, yes, it would. Many
observatory satellites have been placed in orbit, the best
known being the Hubble Space Telescope and James
Webb.

As an interim measure, an aircraft or balloon can take a

telescope above most of the Earth's atmosphere, and
remain there for hours. The first balloon borne astronomy
mission was Stratoscope I in 1957. The Boomerang
(Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic
Radiation And Geophysics) project looked at the cosmic
background microwave radiation. It flew above 125,000
feet. First flight was in 1997. In 1998 and 2003, it
ascended from McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The
mission duration on these flights was 2 weeks. Another
approach that has been used is to have a balloon carry a
sounding rocket to altitude. These can be launched from
anywhere, on land or water, and are still in use

14
The High Energy Focusing Telescope was a balloon
payload looking for hard x-ray sources, in 2005. The
High-resolution gamma-ray and hard X-ray spectrometer
(HIREGS). flew from McMurdo Station, in Antarctica in
1991 and 1992.

Airborne Observatory
This section discusses platforms with a telescope,
including planes, and airships. Infrared observing
missions can fly above the blocking water vapor in the
atmosphere. The first balloon borne astronomy mission
was Stratoscope I in 1957. The Boomerang (Balloonn
Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation
And Geophysics) project looked at the cosmic
background microwave radiation. It flew above 125,000
feet. First flight was in 1997. In 1998 and 2003, it
ascended from McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The
mission duration on this flight was 2 weeks.

NASA's Galileo Airborne Observatory was hosted on a

Convair 990 aircraft. It was first used in 1965, but was
unfortunately destroyed n a mid-air collision in 1973.
NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory used the large
Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. It operated from 1974 to
1995.

The Joint NASA-DLR (Stratospheric Observatory for

Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been in use since 2010.
It uses a Boeing 747SP with a 2.7 meter telescope. The
aircraft is based at the Armstrong Flight Research Center
in Pasadena, CA. The telescope is specially mounted to

15
isolated it from movements of the plane.

NASA's Galileo Airborne Observatory was hosted on a

Convair 990 aircraft. It was first used in 1965, but was
unfortunately destroyed n a mid-air collision in 1973.
NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory used the larger
Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. It operated from 1974 to
1995.
The Joint NASA-DLR (Stratospheric Observatory for
Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been in use since 2010.
Its not a satellite, but it is onboard I a Boeing 747SP with
a 2.7 meter telescope. The aircraft is based at the
Armstrong Flight Research Center in Pasadena, CA. The
telescope is specially mounted to isolated it from
movements of the plane. Missions are flown at 42,000
feet, which allows observation of Infrared above most of
the atmosphere's blocking water vapor.

How do we get the data back?

The Ground Segment of an orbiting mission consists of
the antennas, RF receivers and transmitters,
andcommunication lines to the Control Center. The
Ground segment is the link between the control center,
and the satellites. All data are archived at the ground
segment, in case of communication interruption with the
control center. Before high speed data lines, this was
done locally on magnetic tape, which would later be
shipped to an archive. Unfortunately, a lot of the archives
were not climate-controlled, and the tapes are no
readable. Some duplicate tapes from the tracking station

16
are still readable.

For NASA missions, the infrastructure is in place.

Originally, the tracking stations were linked with the
GSFC facility over leased dedicated landlines. Data
communications was provided by NASCOM, using
4,800 bit blocks. Today, almost all of the traffic moves
over the Internet.

The Near Earth Network (NEN) communicates with

near-Earth orbiting satellites (out to Lunar orbit). It uses
the NASA ground stations. There are two stations in
Florida, in proximity to the Kennedy Center launch site,
at the launch facility at Wallops Island, Virginia, and at
the McMurdo Base in Antarctica. In addition, other
commercial ground stations can be used, under contract
to NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland, manages the NEN, which was formally know
as the Ground Network (GN). The dish antennae of the
GN range from 34 meters to 70 meters in diameter. The
Space Network (SN) dates back to the early 1980's, when
NASA introduced a constellation of communications
satellites to replace the ground tracking stations.

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, in

geosynchronous orbit, are the Space Segment (SS) of the
Space Network. They implement communications
between to low Earth orbiting spacecraft, and one of the
TDRS ground segments. The ground segment units are
located at White Sands, New Mexico, and on Guam
Island, in the Pacific. White Sands also serves as the

17
controlling station for the TDRS spacecraft. The TDRS
network was declared operational in 1989. STDN
stations at Wallops Island, Bermuda, Merritt Island (FL),
Ponce de Leon (Florida), and Dakar, Senegal, remained
operational.

The Tracking & Data Relay Satellite System is over 30

years old, and is being refreshed with new technology.
The Space Segment has spare assets in orbit in case of
failure.
How do we control those orbiting
Observatories?
We need a Control Center! A satellite control center has a
wide variety of task. It provides services to the mission
24x7x365. These services include the reception,
archiving, limit-checking, and conversion of the received
telemetry data. Today, received telemetry is archived in
raw form, and saved in engineering units in a database.
Use of a standard commercial database simplifies
operations and controls costs. The Control Center
disseminates selected data to users, either located in a
control room, or via the web. The Control Center is
usually built around a STOL, or scripting language, for
automation of operations where possible. The software
does limit checking of incoming data, and issues alerts if
limits are exceeded. The control center also is responsible
for commanding the spacecraft. The Goddard Space
Flight Center is the hub of the NASA world-wide
communications Network, and the Lead Center for
unmanned spaceflight. It was dedicated in 1959 by rocket
pioneer Dr. Robert Goddard's widow. The Goddard

18
center has worked on hundreds of spacecraft projects,
including the Hubble Space Telescope, and the new
James Webb Space Telescope. The Control Center
provides work space, data systems for telemetry,
command capability, and coordination of activities
between subsystems. The Control Center is responsible
for spacecraft planning and scheduling. It is operating 24
x 7. The Control Center becomes a busy place during
spacecraft anomaly or failure situations. It is the
workplace for the flight operations team. Generally, the
Control Center has a front room, and a back room. The
front room is responsible for all real time activities, and
commanding. The back room is for off-line analysis.
Different personnel may inhabit the back room at
different times and mission mission phases. In the early
days of spacecraft, the control center function was done
from the launch site, or a tracking station. As spacecraft
computers become more powerful, some of the functions
of the control center could be done onboard. In addition,
the control center architecture has evolved from
mainframe computers, to the client-server architecture, to
pc's, and then to distributed models, based on the cloud.

It is important, though, to still have a defined control

center “space” where the operations team can congregate.
Modern control centers allow engineers to access data on
their smartphones.

Satellite Control centers for NASA non-manned

astronomy missions are located at NASA's GSFC in
Greenbelt, Maryland. The science data may also be

19
processed there, or sent to another [Link] GSFC
Visitors Center is located off of IceSat Road, which is a
turn off of Greenbelt Road. The Main Gate (employees
only) is at 8800 Greenbelt Road, and Icesat Road is East
of the Main gate. After turning on Icesat Road, make the
next left turn into the Visitor's Center parking lot.
Admittance is free. There is a gift shop and bathrooms.
Down the hill is Bldg. 14, NASA's communications
nerve center, NASCOM. A must see is the awesome
Science on a Sphere presentation, which takes about 45
minutes. They have a Hubble and a James Webb
telescope model.

One of the overriding questions is, are we alone in the

Universe? An analysis of the problem by Dr. Frank Drake
resulted in an equation. We need some numbers to put in
the equation. That data comes from telescope
observation.

The Drake Equation

The Drake equation, formulated by Dr. Frank Drake in
1961, is a way of estimating the number of
extraterrestrial Civilizations that can communicate. It was
formulated by Dr. Drake at the Greenbank Radio
observatory. The equation multiplies these factors:
R*, the average rate of star formation in our galaxy.

fp, the fraction of those stars that have planets.

ne, the average number of planets that can potentially

support life per star that has planets.

20
fl, the fraction of planets that could support life that
actually develop life at some point.

fi, the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to

develop intelligent life.

fc, the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology

that releases detectable signs of their existence into
space.

L, the length of time for which such civilizations release

detectable signals into space.

N , the number of civilizations in our Galaxy that ca

communicate.

In 1961, guessing at the parameters, the value for N was

103-108.. As more data is collected, better values for the
parameters evolve. The current value is around 15
million.

The resultant figure for the universe suggests it is highly

unlikely that Earth hosts the only intelligent life that has
ever occurred. Maybe we can check with our neighbors...

The Fermi paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi,

is the apparent contradiction between the lack of
evidence and high probability estimates for the existence
of extraterrestrial civilization. What are we missing?

Initially, we had to guess at most of these parameters, but

21
better observation has brought about better results. As our
observation technology gets better, we get better numbers
for the factors in the equation.

In 1992, the first discovery that our solar system was not
unique in the Galaxy was made. This gave us some real
numbers to plug into the Drake equation. This
observation was done by radio-telescope.

The Red Dwarf star Trappist has a system of 7 planets,

nearly all Earth size. That a red dwarf would have a
planetary system was a surprise, but opened up the
options for further research. At the moment, we can only
detect exoplanets of Earth-size or larger.

Dr. Rene Doyon of the University of Montreal, with an

International Team, photoed three XO planets orbiting
the same star. This is the first detected X0 solar system.
He used the Keck and Gemini North telescopes in
Hawaii, on the summit of the volcano Mauna Kea. Both
of these have 10 meter primary mirrors. Manua Loa,
another volcano, has 13 telescopes. It recently had a
minor eruption, after 40 years of quiet.

Sensors and Detectors

The spacecraft carries a series of sensors and detectors,
optimized to the particular spectrum or energy level we
want to examine.

Detectors tell us of the presence or absence of a signal. If

the signal is present, we can derive data about it with

22
sensors. Sometimes we are looking for transient events
like a gamma ray burst, or we might be monitoring
ongoing phenomena like the Solar Corona.

A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity by

changing state in response to the stimulation, and
producing a signal. It is an analog world. It is rare that we
get to interface directly to a digital source. Some sensors
may indicate one of two states (presence/absence) with a
simple digital signal that may only require voltage level
shifting.

Radiant energy sensing and measurement

This includes the spectrum of radio frequency, infrared,
optical, ultraviolet, gamma rays, and beyond. The
particular sensor technology used depends on the
frequency, but the principles are the same.
Thermal detector devices transform a radiant, infrared or
thermal transfer energy stimulus into an electrical signal.
Most often, the absorbed energy stimuli causes a change
in the detectors temperature, and this change in
temperature manifests itself as a change in electrical
resistance or electrostatic polarization. The sensitivity is
limited by the fluctuation in energy of the absorbed
energy.
The measurement of radiant energy has many
applications. The choice of the measuring device
depends on the frequency range of the energy and the
particular application location or structure. Thermal
detectors include thermocouples, bolometers, thermal

23
imaging devices, resistance-temperature devices such as
doped germanium and silicon cells, optical pyrometers,
photo-conductive cells and photoelectric cells, voltage-
current devices such as a thermistor or Seebeck Effect
devices. Some of these radiant energy detectors require
special operating temperatures.
Photodetectors are semiconductor devices that can detect
optical signals through electronic processes. Quantum
photo-detectors are non-equilibrium devices. A mini-
mum amount of photon energy is required to create a
quantum excitation; this is referred to as a photo-absorp-
tion threshold. The photo-detector output signal depends
on the non-equilibrium between excitation and recombi-
nation in the semiconductor crystal lattice. The signal
amplitude is directly dependent on the photo-excitation
lifetime and the number of absorbed photons.

Star Sensors
Star sensors measure star coordinates in a spacecraft
frame of reference and provide attitude information when
these observed coordinates are compared with known star
directions obtained from a star catalog. Star sensors can
achieve accuracy's in the arc-second range. Most star
sensors consist of a Sunshade, an optical system, an im-
age definition device which defines the region of the field
of view that is visible to the detector, the detector and an
electronic assembly. The detector such as a photo-multi-

24
plier transforms the optical signal into an electrical sig-
nal. Solid-state detectors may be noisier than photo mul-
tipliers. The electronics assembly amplifies and filters
the electrical signal from the detector. If the amplified
optical signal from the detector is above a fixed signal in-
tensity, an output is generated signifying the star’s pres-
ence.

A charge transfer device star sensor is an optical system

consisting of a digitally scanned array of photosensitive
elements whose output is fed to an embedded micropro-
cessor. A charge pattern corresponding to the received
image of the star field viewed is produced. The charge
pattern is then read out serially line-by-line to an analog
to digital converter and this subsequent signal is stored in
memory.

An interferometer superimposes waves, and uses the

resulting interference to gain information. In theory, this
works at any frequency. In practice, sometimes it is
difficult or expensive. The technique is useful for the
measurement of small displacements. We can combine
the outputs of two telescopes, giving a resolution equal to
the separation of the two sensors This is a common
technique in astronomy. In some case, different
telescopes on different spacecraft, very far apart are used.
The Space Interferometry Mission was planned to use
this technique for locating habitable exo-planets, but was
the victim of Budget cutting.

25
The Stars, our Galaxy and others, the
Universe, and all that.

Astronomy
Astronomy is the science that focuses on the celestial
sky, and the objects visible in it. It is based on physics,
mathematics, and chemistry. It is the basis for our
understanding of the Universe, and our place in it.
Besides, its a chance to get out at night and see the pretty
lights.

Keep in mind, we can observe not only in the visible

light spectrum, but on either side of that – infrared,
ultraviolet. We can observe in the radio frequency realm,
for Gamma Rays, and even from Gravitational waves.

Our solar system – what is there to observe?

Our solar system consists of the Sun, which is our source
of power, and a collection of planets, their moons, a large
asteroid belt, a collection of comets, and a bunch of
miscellaneous rocks. It is a very diverse system, with
examples of just about every object imaginable. Mankind
has been observing and documenting the solar system for
thousands of years. The behavior of the “fixed stars” and
the “wanderers” (planets) were carefully documented.
Many theories of the solar system and the universe in
general were postulated. It was obvious that the Earth
was the center of the universe, and modeling that
universe was extremely difficult. The ancient Greeks
were able to untangle the data enough to predict eclipses.

26
It was not until the late middle ages when Copernicus
suggested that the Sun might be the center of our solar
system, which made the model much simpler, but almost
got him thrown out of the Church.

Sun
The Sun is the source of our energy, and it keeps the solar
system organized. It is about a million times the size of
Earth. The Sun is extremely hot due to nuclear reaction.
The tiny amount of its energy output that strikes the
Earth makes life here possible. All the stars you see at
night are other suns that are very far away. Each of these
might also have planets. Planets around other stars have
been discovered from observation, and by their
gravitation effect on their sun.

Each planet in our solar system is in an orbit around the

Sun. The time it takes a planet to complete an orbit is
what we call a year. Each of the planets have different
duration “years.” A planet also spins like a ball as it
continues in its orbit. The time to complete one
revolution is called a “day.”

Mercury
Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, is in tidal lock
with the sun, with one side always facing it. It wobbles a
bit, creating a twilight zone that is much less extreme. It
has no known moons, or Trojans. Being so close to the
Sun, it is difficult to observe the planet and its immediate
vicinity.

27
Venus
Heavy greenhouse clouds trap the solar energy, and cause
massive global warming on a planetary scale. The surface
temperature is high enough to melt some metals. We need
to find out what went wrong on Venus, and try to avoid
that on Earth.

Venus' atmosphere is 96% carbon dioxide at a surface

pressure of nearly 100 times Earth's, a greenhouse gone
wild. It has no moons. Venus is roughly Earth-sized, but
something went terribly wrong
The heavily clouded atmosphere makes it difficult to
observe Venus.

Earth
We observe the Earth continuously with a series of
orbiting satellites, to keep track of the weather, and
violent events. In fact, Earth is the best observed planet,
and we know the most about it. Not that it can't give us
surprises. Earth's moon is the largest object in the sky,
and has been observed since humans looked up. It is
orbited by a series of satellites, has surface landers, and
has been visited by Astronauts from the United States.
The bow shock is plasma from the Sun hitting the Earth's
or other planet's magnetosphere. The plasma is ionized,
and follows spiral paths along magnetic field lines. The
flow speed, at Earth, is around 400 km/s. The shock, at
Earth, is some 17 km thick, and located 90,000 km
sunward. Bow shocks exist on planets with a magnetic
field, and have been observed in other star systems.

28
Near Earth Objects
A NEO is a solar system object whose closest approach
to the Sun is 1.3 AU, and that comes in close proximity
to the Earth There are 14,000 known asteroids in this
category, 100 comets, solar orbiting spacecraft, and
meteoroids. All these have the potential of striking the
Earth. They are closely tracked from the ground, by
NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. A joint
US/ESA project called Spaceguard is tracking NEO's
larger than 30 meters. Three NEO's have been visited by
spacecraft.
There more than 15,000 NEO's. Chunks of rock, hanging
around Earth.. If these enter the atmosphere, they heat up
and burn. Sometimes, enough is left to hit the ground.
The easiest place to find meteors (as we call asteroids
that hit the ground) is Antarctica, where they stand out
against the snow and ice. A lot of the Antarctic meteors
come from Mars, as one of my old professors proved.

Mars
Mars, and its two tiny moons and seven Trojans has got
some infrastructure in place – a communications relay
and a weather satellite. There are several Rovers and
landers on the surface.
The Viking program was a pair of spacecraft sent to Mars
in 1975. Each spacecraft consisted of an orbiter, and a
lander. A major target now is a Mars sample return
mission.

29
The Asteroid Belt
There are millions of asteroids, mostly in the inner solar
system. The main asteroid belt is between Mars and
Jupiter. Each may be unique, and some may provide
needed raw materials for Earth's use. There are three
main classifications: carbon-rich, stony, and metallic.

The physical composition of asteroids is varied and

poorly understood. Ceres, the Dwarf planet in the
Asteroid belt, appears to be composed of a rocky core
covered by an icy mantle, whereas Vesta may have a
nickel-iron core. Hygiea appears to have a uniformly
primitive composition of carbonaceous chondrite. Many
of the smaller asteroids are piles of rubble held together
loosely by gravity. Some have moons themselves, or are
co-orbiting binary asteroids. The bottom line is, asteroids
are numerous and diverse.

It has been suggested that asteroids might be used as a

source of materials that may be rare or exhausted on
earth (asteroid mining) or materials for constructing
space habitats or as refuelling stations for missions.
Materials that are heavy and expensive to launch from
earth may someday be mined from asteroids and used
directly for space manufacturing.

The asteroids are not uniformly distributed. In the

asteroid belt, the Kirkwood gaps are relatively empty
spots. This is caused by orbital resonance of the asteroids
with Jupiter.

30
Jupiter
Jupiter has 79 known moons, and perhaps 1 million
Trojans of 1 kilometer or larger. These tend to congregate
at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points. The largest has a
diameter of several hundred kilometers. The International
Astronomical Union just announced as this book was
being updated the discovery of 12 previously unknown
moons of Jupiter, by an observatory high in the Andes in
Chile. Only one has been named so far, Valetudo, a great-
granddaughter of Jupiter The one way light time for
Jupiter is 33-53 minutes.

Saturn
Saturn and it's 62 known moons has a one-way light time
around 1.4 hours. Saturn has been visited by spacecraft
four times. The first was a flyby by Pioneer-10 in 1979.
This showed the temperature of the planet was 250
degrees K. Voyager-1 visited in 1980. It conducted a
close flyby of the moon Titan to study its atmosphere. It
is, unfortunately, opaque in visible light. We do know it
rains methane. Voyager-2 swung by a year later, and data
showed changes in the rings since its sister mission
visited the year before. Temperature and pressure profiles
of the atmosphere were gathered. Saturn's temperature
was measured at 70 degrees above absolute zero at the
top of the clouds, and -130 C near the surface. The flybys
discovered additional moons, and small gaps in the rings.

Uranus
Saturn and it's 62 known moons has a one-way light time
around 1.4 hours. Saturn has been visited by spacecraft

31
four times. The first was a flyby by Pioneer-10 in 1979.
This showed the temperature of the planet was 250
degrees K. Voyager-1 visited in 1980. It conducted a
close flyby of the moon Titan to study its atmosphere. It
is, unfortunately, opaque in visible light. We do know it
rains methane. Voyager-2 swung by a year later, and data
showed changes in the rings since its sister mission
visited the year before. Temperature and pressure profiles
of the atmosphere were gathered. Saturn's temperature
was measured at 70 degrees above absolute zero at the
top of the clouds, and -130 C near the surface. The flybys
discovered additional moons, and small gaps in the rings.

Neptune
Neptune has 14 known moons, and 18 known Trojans.
It's one-way light time is around 4.3 hours. Neptune has
also been visited by Voyager-2 in 1989. It discovered six
new moons. That is the extent of close-up observations of
the planet. Neptune has rings, like Jupiter and Saturn, and
a great dark spot. It's moon Triton has geysers and polar
caps. Triton has an interesting retrograde orbit – it goes in
a different direction than the other moons. Triton's
surface is mostly frozen nitrogen, and is geologically
active. It is speculated that Triton has a subterranean
ocean. The moon Ptoteus is an ellipsoid, not a sphere.

Pluto and beyond

Pluto was downgraded from a planet to a Kuiper Belt
object. The New Horizons mission to Pluto and the
Kuiper Belt began in January of 2006, and reached the
vicinity of Pluto in July 2015. It conducted a 6-month

32
survey of Pluto, and went out farther into the Kuiper belt,
on an 3 year extended mission, which is ongoing at this
writing. The spacecraft was developed for NASA by the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel,
MD.
Pluto had one known moon, Charon, before the New
Horizons Team members, using the Hubble Space
Telescope data, discovered four more, Nix, Hydra, Styx,
and Kerebos.

Kuiper Belt
The Kuiper Belt extends from the orbit of Neptune out
approximately 50 AU. There are three known dwarf
planets, the former planet Pluto and two others. Over
100,000 units are speculated to exist. Neptune has a
major gravitational influence over the Kuiper belt
objects. Not much is known about the belt and its objects,
since astronomers have had to rely on ground based
observation. The New Horizons mission is proceeding
out through the Kuiper belt, and will tell us what it sees.

Beyond the Kuiper belt is the Scattered disc, extending

beyond 100 AU. This is a sparsely populated region of
the solar system. There is no knowledge of how many
scattered disk objects (SDO's) exist. The closest is at
around 30 AU. The belt extends above and below the
ecliptic plane, in a torus configuration.

Beyond this is the Oort Cloud, extending out 5,000 –

100,000 AU. There is a disk-shaped inner cloud, and a
spherical outer cloud. And you thought space was empty.

33
Dwarf Planets
The dwarf planets of our solar system include Ceres.
Orcus, Pluto, Salacia, Varuna, Haumea, Quaoar,
Makemake, 2007 OR10, Eris, and Sedna. These smaller
objects did not make the size cut to be a real planet.
These all orbit the Sun. Ceres is located in the asteroid
belt. Orcus is a trans-Neptunian object, Salacia, Haumea,
Quaoar, Makemake, and Varuna are Kuiper Belt objects.
Eris is the largest of the dwarf planets, having its own
moon. Sedna is beyond the Kuiper belt. It's orbital period
“year: is 11,400 Earth years. It's in a highly elongated
orbit, probably due to Neptune's gravity. Generally, a
dwarf planet does not have enough gravity to clear its
orbit of other material. Not all dwarf planets have yet
been discovered or observed. There may be 10's of
thousands.

Comets
There are some 5,253 known comets. The Deep Impact
mission returned images of the surface of comet Borrelly
in 2001. That surface was hot (26-70C), dry, and dark. In
July of 2005, the same mission sent a probe into Comet
Tempel 1. It created a crater, allowing imaging of
subsurface material. Water ice was seen. Comet Borrely
has a coma, which proved to be vaporized subsurface
water ice. Deep Impact went on to complete a flyby of
Comet Hartley-2 in 2010.
That seems like a lot of things to look at through a
telescope, or send missions to explore. But, that's just our
solar system, with 1 star. There are a lot of stars, some

34
known to have their own planetary systems.

The stars
The stars we see from Earth seem to be arranged in
patterns, forming what the ancients saw as constellations.
In reality, from out point of view, there are patterns, but
those stars are at widely ranging distances from Earth.
We can determine distances from a physics phenomena
called the red shift. First, we determine if the light from
the star is shifted to a higher or lower frequency. How do
we know what it started out to be? The spectral bands of
common elements is observed. All of the elements'
spectral lines will be shifted the same amount.
Comparing that to a “normal” spectrum will give the
shift. If there is a red shift, there is an increase in
wavelength, and the observed object is moving away
from us. Similarly, a blue shift is a decrease in
wavelength, and the object is moving toward us. The
amount of the shift gives the velocity. The amount of
shift is affected by relativistic effects at velocities
approaching the speed of light.
A special class of pulsating stars is called the Cepheids.
They are noticeable by changes in brightness, and usually
exhibits stable behavior. There is a direct correlation
between the luminosity of the star, and its period.
Knowing that, scientists can use those stars as measures
of distance. The first was discovered in 1784, but the
behavior was not understood until around 1908. The
pulsations can be on the order of days or months.
A nova is a transient astronomical event involving a

35
bright new star that fades over time.

The Main Sequence of Stars is a chart of color versus

brightness. The chart is referred to as the Hertzsprung-
Russell diagram. Most known stars fit within the
diagram.
A binary star is a star system, with the two stars orbiting
a common point. If there's more than two, it is just
referred to as a star system.
A Neutron star is the collapsed core of a very large star.
The original star had to have a mass of around 10-30
times greater than our Sun. They are small and dense,
with a radius of around 10 kilometers, and weighing
about 2 solar masses. They result from a supernova
explosion of the original star, followed by gravitational
collapse which compresses what's left to the density of
atomic nuclei, with no spaces. They have large magnetic
fields, and rotate very quickly.
A supernova is an end-of-life explosion of a star.
Observed from Earth, there is a brilliant new bright light
in the sky, that gradually fades. There have been three
supernova events observed in the Milky Way in the last
thousand years.
A dwarf star is smaller than our Sun. They come in white,
black, brown, red, yellow, orange and possibly blue.
These stars are not dense enough to collapse into a
neutron star at end-of-life. A black dwarf no longer emits
visible light. A blue dwarf has not been observed, but is
postulated to exist.

36
A black hole is an object that has a gravitational field that
is too strong for even light to escape. It is postulated to
warp spacetime itself. The boundary around the black
hole is known as the event horizon. Black holes may be
the result of the collapse of a very massive star. These are
usually found in the galactic core. They create
gravitational waves, which have just recently been
observed. The concept of a Black Hole, which is
essentially a point mass, was first suggested in 1784.
There is a supermassive black hole at the center of the
Milky Way. ESA's LISA Pathfinder, operational from
2015 to 2017, was tasked with searching and observing
gravitational waves. These are, essentially, ripples in
space-time, usually generated in the collisions of neutron
stars, or black holes
A Galaxy, like our own Milky Way, is a collection of
stars gas, dust, and dark matter, gravitationally bound
together. The objects orbit the galaxy's center of mass,
and can be of an elliptical, spiral, or irregular shape.
Between the stars and other objects in a galaxy is a gas,
with a density around 1 atom per cubic meter. There are
estimated to be around 1011 - 1012 galaxy's in our
observable universe, each having 108 to 1014 stars. It's a
big place.

The Magellanic Clouds are made up of two dwarf

galaxies in the southern sky, The cloud orbits our Milky
Way Galaxy. These phenomena were noted by the
Khoisan People of Southern Africa. The early Polynesian
peoples used them as navigation aids. There is a large
cloud, and a small cloud.

37
A Nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust and gases,
spanning millions of light years. The most prominent
one, from our viewpoint, is the Orion Nebula, visible
with the naked eye. Stars are formed in nebula, from the
concentration of matter. Ptolemy the Greek observed a
nebula around the year 150. The Andromeda Nebula was
observed by a Muslim astronomer in the 10th century. He
named it, “Little Cloud.” Later, Edwin Hubble identified
it as a different galaxy than ours.
A Pulsar is a magnetized, rotating neutron star. Like a
lighthouse, it emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation
in one direction. Observed from Earth, it looks like it is
pulsing. The stars have very regular rotation rates, and
thus the pulses appear at very precise intervals. They can
be used to time other events. They were discovered in
1967.
Star clusters are groups of stars. A Global cluster has
thousands of old stars, an open cluster is more loosely
configured, and consists of younger stars. A cluster tend
to be spherical, and the constituent stars tend to be the
same age. The Pleiades are an example of an open star
cluster.

From somewhere else

Not everything in our solar system is from around here.
Generally, our solar system bodies orbit the Sun in a disk
called the ecliptic plane. Comets that are not necessarily
in orbit around our Sun can take a path that are highly
inclined to that plane. As this book was being written, the
first asteroid at a very high angle with respect to the

38
ecliptic was observed. That means it did not originate in
our solar system, but came from some where else in our
galaxy, or beyond. There is no particular name for this
class of objects, but the title “Exeroid” has been
suggested. This will have to be cleared with the
International Astronomical Union. The object was
observed by the telescope on the Hawaiian mountain of
Hakeakala. It is the first time an interstellar object has
been observed. It was named Oumuamua, in Hawaiian,
“messenger from afar, arriving first.” It came from the
direction of the constellation Lyra. The messenger was
first spotted on October 19, 2017.

Exoplanets
Exoplanets are planets orbiting another star than our own
Sun. Although it is difficult to see them through a
telescope, we can define them by their gravitational
effects on their primary (star). We have just expanded our
search zone by a huge factor., with the JWST.

A Galaxy, like our own Milky Way, is a collection of

stars, gas, dust, and dark matter, gravitationaly bound
together. The objects orbit the galaxy's center of mass, in
an elliptical, spiral, or irregular shape. Between the stars
and other objects in a galaxy is a gas, with a density
around 1 atom per cubic meter. There are estimated to be
around 1011 - 1012 galaxy's in our observable universe,
each having 108 to 1014 stars.
At the moment, we know of around 4,00 planets orbiting
other stars. We don't know how many are in the habitable

39
zone. Even the definition of “habitable” is not well
defined, and goes according to “life as we know it.”
Exoplanets can be in any orbit – they can rotate in the
same direction they are moving in orbit, or the opposite
way (retrograde). There are also rogue planets, that do
not orbit a star. It is thought that there may be a billion of
these in the Milky Way galaxy alone.

Just recently, the European Organisation for

Astronomical Research'ss Very Large Telescope in Chile
took a picture of the brown dwarf 2M1207. It also caught
a Jupiter-sized planet, termed 2M1207b. We are just
beginning to understand planet formation. We think we
understand star formation.

More than one exo-planet can orbit a star, giving us

exosolar systems. In addition, an exo-moon has been
discovered orbiting a known exoplanet. Recently
discovered was something that had never been seen
before, and needed a name. It was a small body, orbiting
the moon of a known exoplanet. The astronomers
decided to call it a moonmoon. Beyond that, seven known
exoplanets orbit a binary star system. There can be two
planets that orbit each other, without a star. Some
observed exoplanets are rocky, like Earth and the inner
planets. Some as gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn.
Some are icy giants, like Neptune and Uranus. There is
an upper limit to the size of a planet. If it is more than
about 12 Jupiter masses, it will evolve into a star, not a
planet. The gravity at that level is enough to crush matter,
and start nuclear fusion. This rather small star is called a

40
brown dwarf.

There are many planet classifications, including Giant,

Super Earth, Super-Jupiter, Sub-Earth, Mini-Neptune, a
Planetar (brown dwarf or smaller), Planemo (not quite a
star), and Mesoplanet, smaller than Mercury, but larger
than Ceres. In addition there are the Hot Jupiters,
unusually close totheir star. Closer, in fact than our planet
Mercury. They have an orbital period of 10 days or less.
The hot Jupiter 51 Pegasi b was found in 1995.

Super Puffs are Jupiter-sized exo-planets that are about

10 times lighter. There is one close to the star WASP-
107P in Virgo. It orbits its star in 5.7 days. There are so
many exoplanets known that I will only discuss a few.
The exoplanet takes on the name of its parent star, with a
number representing the order in which it was
discovered. The largest exo-planet observed is HR2562,
with a mass about 30 times that of Jupiter, On the other
side of the spectrum, the smallest observed is about twice
the size of Earth's moon. The nearest, discussed below,
orbits our neighbor star Proxima Centauri, a bit more
than 4 light years away. And there are exo-solar systems,
with collections of exoplanets, with their

Space Weather
The Sun controls the weather in our solar system. Large
solar flares can release up to 1025 joules of Energy. The
Sun releases electrons, stripped from their atoms, the
resulting ions, and intact atoms from the corona. It also
releases radio waves, which, traveling at the speed of

41
light, reach Earth 8 minutes later. The particles travel at
sub-light speeds. Bright aurora's in the polar regions will
be created. Stellar flares have also been observed on
other stars.
When the solar wind reaches the Earth's magnetic field, it
interacts with it, creating a Geomagnetic storm. There
can also be proton storms from the Sun. One effect is that
the upper atmosphere is heated to tens of millions of
degrees Kelvin. Luckily, it is near-vacuum. Increased
electromagnetic radiation from radio to Gamma Rays are
also observed.
As a side note, the out-streaming solar wind can be used
with solar sails to catch a ride, in the same way a sailboat
is moved by the wind on Earth. It is even possible to tack
in towards the Sun. Solar sails are lightweight, and need
to be reflective.
The Sun has an 11 year cycle, ranging between being
fairly quiet, to very stormy. Solar flares are not
completely understood, and there is no good model for
their prediction. Generally, we have a 2-hour window
between detection, to when the storm hits.
Space weather has two observational goals – monitoring
the Sun, to see what it is generating, and observing the
effects on the planets and moons of our solar system.

Astronomy Missions
This section has overviews of the Astronomy missions to
date, with some discussion of future missions. Unless a
satellite is providing services such as Direct-TV or GPS,

42
it is either looking up, or looking down. If it's looking
down, it is a weather or climate mission. If it's looking
up, its an astronomy mission. That's how we rocket
engineers characterize things. We will discuss missions
here that look up.

Airborne Observatory
This section discusses platforms with a telescope,
including planes, and airships. Infrared observing
missions can fly above the blocking water vapor in the
atmosphere. The first balloon borne astronomy mission
was Stratoscope I in 1957. The Boomerang (Balloon
Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation And
Geophysics) project looked at the cosmic background
microwave radiation. It flew above 125,000 feet. First
flight was in 1997. In 1998 and 2003, it ascended from
McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The mission duration on
this flight was 2 weeks.
NASA's Galileo Airborne Observatory was hosted on a
Convair 990 aircraft. It was first used in 1965, but was
unfortunately destroyed n a mid-air collision in 1973.
NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory used the large
Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. It operated from 1974 to
1995.
The Joint NASA-DLR (Stratospheric Observatory for
Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has been in use since 2010.
It uses a Boeing 747SP with a 2.7 meter telescope. The
aircraft is based at the Armstrong Flight Research Center
in Pasadena, CA. The telescope is specially mounted to
isolated it from movements of the plane.

43
Space Weather
The Sun controls the weather in our solar system. Large
solar flares can release up to 1025 joules of Energy. The
Sun releases electrons, stripped from their atoms, the
resulting ions, and intact atoms from the corona. It
alsoreleases radio waves, which, traveling at the speed of
light, reach Earth 8 minutes later. The particles travel
atsub-light speeds. Bright aurora's in the polar regions
willbe created. Stellar flares have also been observed on
other [Link] the solar wind reaches the Earth's
magnetic field, it interacts with it, creating a
Geomagnetic storm. There can also be proton storms
from the Sun. One effect is that the upper atmosphere is
heated to tens of millions of degrees Kelvin. Luckily, it is
near-vacuum. Increased electromagnetic radiation from
radio to Gamma Rays are also observed.

NASA's Wind spacecraft was launched in 1994 to study

radio waves and plasma in the solar wind. It continues to
operate at this writing, from the Earth-Sun L1 point As a
side note, the out-streaming solar wind can be used with
solar sails to catch a ride, in the same way a sailboat is
moved by the wind on Earth. It is even possible to tack in
towards the Sun. Solar sails are lightweight, and need to
be reflective.

The Sun has an 11 year cycle, ranging between being

fairly quiet, to very stormy. Solar flares are not
completely understood, and there is no good model for
their prediction. Generally, we have a 2-hour window

44
between detection, to when the storm hits. Space weather
has two observational goals – monitoring the Sun, to see
what it is generating, and observing the effects on the
planets and moons of our solar system.

Dark Energy and Dark Matter

Dark Matter may account for 85% of the matter in the
universe. It does not interact with the electromagnetic
field. It does not absorb nor emit electromagnetic energy.

NASA's Astronomy satellites

This section discusses the various space telescopes
projects by NASA. Most control centers for the
unmanned astronomy missions in Earth orbit are at the
Goddard Space Flight Center, with Science Data
Processing centers hosted there, or at Universities. The
Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, handles
missions that go out beyond Earth orbit, and visit other
planets. They have a couple of spacecraft that have left
our solar system entirely. Both facilities have visitor's
centers, if you want to see the hardware. I would also
recommend the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum in
Washington, D. C. and its facility at Dulles Airport in
Virginia.

Some astronomy is done from our big “NASA Center” in

orbit, the International Space Station. This provides a
convenient place to attach an observing payload, and
return it to Earth later.

In addition, some observing instruments went as “up-

45
and-back” payloads on the Shuttle when it was
operational. This limited the mission time, but you got
your instrument back to possibly fly again. The missions
usually involved the Spacelab module in the Shuttle bay,
and associated pallets, with pointing systems, controlled
from the Shuttle itself, or the ground. One such payload
was Astro-1, which included three telescopes. After many
delays, it flew on Shuttle Columbia in December of 1999.
The Astro-2 payload went in 1993 on Endeavor. It had a
Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, the WUPPe (see
glossary), and an Ultraviolet telescope from Johns
Hopkins University.

Astronomy missions are usually designed to observe in

specific spectral bands such as infrared or ultraviolet. In
general, different specialists are in charge of these
missions. I know of one case where a Gamma Ray
scientist and an X-ray astronomy were having coffee at
the cafeteria, and discussing work. They found that a
gamma ray burst had occurred at the same time and in the
same area as an x-ray burst. Serendipitous, and
something new, cross-disciplinary was learned.

HETE-2
The High Energy Transient Explorer was a NASA joint
project with France and Japan. It was built to observe
gamma ray bursts, and had UV, X-ray, and gamma ray
detectors. The HETE-1 mission ended when the satellite
failed to separate from its launch vehicle attach fitting
and co-payload in 1996. The replacement HETE-2 was
launched in 2000. The mission is still operational being

46
compromised by aging batteries.
See, [Link]

Swift
The Gamma Ray Burst Explorer, renamed Swift, was
launched in 2004. It's main objective was to determine
the origin of gamma ray bursts. It has to date taken over a
million images, and is still operational. The control
center is on the campus of the Pennsylvania State
University. A gamma ray burst can be accompanied with
an afterglow in the UV and optical spectrum areas.

There are three primary instruments. The Burst Alert

Telescope (BAT) detects bursts, and computes the
coordinates. The computation takes 15 seconds, and the
coordinates are downlinked to the control center, for
distribution to ground-based observatories. The X-ray
telescope performs spectral analysis on the afterglow.
This helps to more accurately determine the location of
the burst. The afterglow can last for days to weeks. The
ultraviolet and optical telescope looks for an optical
afterglow after a burst.
This project was renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift
Observatory, after Dr. Neil Gehrels of NASA/GSFC,
Principal Investigator, who passed away in 2017. He was
my friend, and the “go-to” guy for Gamma Ray bursts.
A planned successor to swift is the Space Variable
Objects Monitor (SVMOS), being developed by China
and France, for launch in 2021.

47
Fermi
The Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, was originally
termed Glast (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope).
It was a follow-on to the Compton mission, and was
launched in 2008. It was a joint effort between NASA,
DOE, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. It is
complemented with observations from the HETE and
Swift missions. The main observing instrument is the
Large Area Telescope. It has a dedicated Gamma Ray
Burst Monitor. At the moment, it is the most sensitive
gamma ray instrument in orbit. The mission was
designed for a 5-year operational lifetime, with a goal of
10 years. It made the 10-year goal, and is continuing to
return useful data. One of the rotating solar arrays is
stuck, causing operating constraints in power, and
thermal issues.

Uhuru
Uhura was the first satellite specifically designed for X-
ray astronomy. Uhuru neans Freedom in Swahili. The
mission was launched from the San Marco platform near
Mombasa, Kenya. It was officially NASA's Explorer 42.
It was a scanning instrument, with a spin period of about
12 minutes. It did an all-sky survey in the X-ray spectrum
in the 2-20 kev range. . It used proportional counters
sensitive to photons in the X-ray spectrum. It discovered
several new X-ray sources. After returning data for two
years, the mission ended in 1973.

Small Astronomy Satellite, SAS-2

The Small Astronomy Satellite-2 (number 48 in the

48
Explorer series) was launched in 1972. It carried a
gamma ray telescope, and launched from a platform in
the ocean off Kenya, into low Earth orbit. It operated
from November 1972 to July 1973, when a failure in a
power supply closed down the mission. It's major claim
to fame is discovering the Pulsar Geminga.
The mission objective of the satellite was to measure the
spatial and energy distribution of primary galactic and
extra-galactic gamma radiation, with energies in the
range between 20 and 300 MeV.

OAO
The first Orbiting Astronautical Observatory satellite was
lost in 1966 when a power supplied failed 3 days into the
mission. The replacement OAO-2 was launched in 1968.
Nicknamed Stargazer, it observed in the Ultraviolet,
using 11 telescopes. What was to be OAO-3, termed
OAO-B at launch, never made it to orbit, due to a
separation issue with the upper stage. The OAO-3
mission was launched in 1972, as a collaboration with the
Science Research Council in the UK. It operated until
1981. It was based on NASA's Multi-Mission Modular
Spacecraft bus, and built by Grumman Aerospace in New
York. It used the NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer. It
was operated from the GSFC. At some point, you will
get tired of me saying, “I worked on that mission,” but I
did. OAO-3, named Copernicus, was a 1972 mission. A
collaborative effort with the UK, it was the most
successful in the series. It had an X-ray detector, and a
UV telescope.

49
OSO
The Orbiting Solar Observatorys were a series of NASA
satellites to observe our Sun. A total of eight were
launched. Of interest was the 11 year solar cycle. A
follow-on program, the advanced orbiting solar
observatory was started in the 1960's, but was stopped
due to budget constraints. Esa

HEAO
There were three spacecraft in the High Energy
Astronomy Observatory series. Only number two
acquired a name, the Einstein observatory. The HEAO
program operated from NASA's MSFC, from the late
1970's through the 1980's. These spacecraft observed in
the x-ray and Gamma-ray spectrum. They were placed
into near-circular orbits, with an altitude around 500 km.
HEAO-1's mission was a sky-survey, which it conducted
from 1977 through 1979. It had four different
instruments, provided by GSFC, NRL, the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard College observatory,
and the University of California at San Diego.
The mission resulted in the compilation of the HEAO A-
1 X-ray Source Catalog, with 842 identified sources.

HEAO-2 was launched in 1979, and operated until 1981.

It had a single large focusing X-ray telescope. At the
focal plane were four instruments, a high resolution
imaging camera, an imaging proportional counter, a solid
state spectrometer, and a Bragg Focal Plane Crystal
Spectrometer.

50
HEAO-3 went into Earth orbit in 1979, and reentered in
1981. All three spacecraft were built by TRW Systems.
HEAO-3 had three instruments, a cryogenic gamma-ray
spectrometer, and two cosmic ray instruments. One of
these measured the composition of isotopes, from
beryllium to iron. The other was a heavy nuclei
experiment, to help characterize cosmic ray sources.

IRAS
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite has the distinction of
being the first mission to perform an all-sky survey in the
infrared spectrum. This was a joint NASA project with
the UK and the Netherlands. In 1983. Infrared
instruments are limited by their cooling systems. In
IRAS' case, this was liquid helium, which was depleted
in 10 months.

One of its major findings was strange infrared signatures

around some stars. Hubble was tasked to examine these,
and discovered planetary disks around those stars IRAS
also discovered three asteroids and six comets.

Infrared Telescope in Space

This was a joint project between the National Space
Development Agency of Japan and the Institute of Space
and Astronautical Science, also in Japan. It was launched
It was launched in 1995, and only operated for about a
month. It was on the Space Flying Unit, which was
attached to the ISS, until it was retrieved by the Space
Shuttle Endeavor.

51
The Infrared Space Observatory was an ESA Project
launched in 1995, and operating until 1998.

SPHEREx is the Spectro-Photometer for the History of

the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer.
It is a NASA Project for 2024. It images in the near-
infrared. It will be launched for the Vandenburg Air Force
Base in California, into a polar orbit. Its instrument is a
spectrophotometer. It will be mapping the entire sky.

NuSTAR
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)
observed in the X-ray spectrum. It was part of NASA's
Small Explorer program. It launched in 2012, and is
operating as of this writing. The Earth's atmosphere is
opaque to X-rays, all we know about X-ray sources in
Space comes from satellite observations. It produced
much new data on the characteristics of the sources of x-
rays. It also conducted a deep survey for black holes.

RXTE
The Rossi X-ray timing explorer (Explorer 69) was a
NASA mission, launched in 1995. It carried an all-sky
monitor, a proportional counter array and the High-
energy X-ray timing experiment. The Mission was named
for the physicist Bruno Rossi. It observed x-rays
originating from black holes, neutron stars, x-ray pulsars,
and x-ray bursts. It had three instruments, an all-sky
monitor, a proportional counter array, and a high energy
x-ray timing experiment. It operated until 2012, and has
since re-entered the atmosphere. It's major claim to fame

52
was supplying the proof that the diffuse background X-
ray glow in the galaxy comes from previously undetected
white dwarf stars and from other stars' coronas.

WISE
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer launched in
2009. It operated until 2011, when it was put into
hibernation mode, but was reactivated in 2013. It's
accomplishments include the discovery of thousands of
minor planets, and many star clusters. It was the first to
see Earth's Trojan, named 210 TK7. WISE was built by
Ball Aerospace.
WISE performed all-sky surveys in the 3.4 to 22 um
wavelengths. After its cryogenic coolant was depleted, a
mission extension was conducted to search for near-Earth
objects. WISE's data was released into the public domain
in 2012, and can be found at
[Link]

WISE took some 1.5 million images over its lifetime,

each with a 6-arc-second resolution. It observed in four
bands, 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 microns.

It provided observations of over 33,000 new asteroids,

and 154,000 other solar system objects, 290 near-Earth
asteroids and comets. Among its accomplishments if the
discovery of the most luminous known galaxy in the
Universe, known as WISE J224607.57-052635.0 .

The NEOWISE program was a 1-month extension to the

mission, in October, 2010. This was successful, so the

53
mission was extended another 3 months. Only two of the
four sensors can work without cyrogen. In this phase,
twenty new comets were discovered. Up to this point,
some 158,000 minor planets were characterized, with
35,000 new objects.

They spacecraft was put into hibernation in February f

2011. Status was checked in September of 2012, and
everything looked good. A year later, NASA decided to
recommission the mission to search for NEO's. This was
just after the Chelyabinsk meteor escaped detection, and
exploded over Russia. Wise came out of hibernation in
September of 2013. The telescope was pointed into deep
space, to lower its temperature to -200 degrees C.

The new operation was titled Neo-Wise. As of May 2018,

the mission had discovered more than 250 Near Earth
asteroids, nearly 50 potentially hazardous objects, and 28
new comets.

Astro
There were eight satellites in this Japanese series, Astro-
A, Hinotori, mission was the detailed study of solar flares
during solar maximum. Astro-B, HEASARC, This was
the second X-ray astronomy satellite. it launched in 1983,
and operated from February until November of 1985.

Astro-C, Ginga was an x-ray astronomy mission. It

included the Large Area Proportional Counters (LAC),
the All Sky X-Ray Monitor (ASM), and the Gamma-Ray
Burst Detector (GRBD) Astro-D, ASCA, the Advanced

54
Satellite for Cosmology and Astronomy, conducted
spectroscopty in the Iron K band.

Astro-E and EII, was a X-ray astronomy satellite

developed jointly by the Institute of Space and
Aeronautical Science at JAXA and NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center to probe high energy X-ray sources,
such as supernova explosions, black holes and galactic
clusters. It was launched on 10 July 2005.

Astro-F, Akari, Japan’s first infrared-ray astronomical

satellite to perform "survey observations," an all-sky
surveys of infrared sources, including stars and galaxies.

Astro-G, VSOP-2, The VLBI Space Observatory

Program-2 (VSOP-2) is an international Space Very Long
Baseline Interferometer. It was cleared for launch in
2013. Astro-H, Hitomi, Previously, New X-ray
Telescope. is the fourth comsic x-ray astronomy mission
by JAXA.

COBE
The Cosmic Background Explorer launched in 1989, and
operated until 1993. It was designated as Explorer-66,
and incorporated technology from the IRAS mission.
COBE investigated the cosmic microwave background
radiation. It was able to collect information that
supported the Big Bang Theory. Several investigators got
the Nobel Prize in Physics as a result of their work on
COBE-supplied data. Cobe was followed by the WMAP
(NASA) and Planck (ESA) missions.

55
Cobe had three instruments, the Diffuse Infrared
Background Experiment (DIRBE), the Far-InfraRed
Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) and the
Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR ).

The mission operated in a Sun-synchronous orbit. It

eventually ran out of its superfluid helium coolant. It had
been designed to operate for at least 6 months. It added
ten new galaxy's to our knowledge-base. Like most
NASA missions, the Cobe data is available online.

A follow-on mission is the Wilkinson Microwave

Anisotropy Probe by NASA, and the Planck mission by
ESA.

Planck
This was a Cosmic microwave background exploration,
and exoplanet searcher. It was placed at the Sun-Earth L2
LaGrange point, and operated from 2009 to 2013.

AMS
There were two of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
spacecraft, one launched in 1988, the other in 2011. The
prototype AMS-11 flew on the STS-21 mission, for proof
of concept. AMS-2 was to be delivered to the ISS in
2003, but the Shuttle disaster delayed these plans.
Finally, it got there in 2011 on Mission STS-134. It is
mounted on the Integrated Truss Structure. It weighs
8500 kg, and required 2.5 kw of power. It does a lot of
analysis on collected data, resulting in a low 2
megabit/sec downlink requirement. It catches about a

56
thousand cosmic rays per second. The operations control
center are located at CERN in Switzerland.
The AMS-2 measures antimatter in cosmic rays. It
recorded billions of cosmic ray events, and nearly half a
million positrons. It is examining basic cosmological
concepts such as antimatter, dark matter, and the
existence of classes of quarks known as strangelets. The
first scholarly paper resulting from the observations was
published in 2013.

AMS-2 was the result of work by over 500 scientists

from 56 institutions around the world, and was called the
most sophisticated particle detector sent into space.
Before launch, it was to be equipped with a
superconducting magnet, but this was not done, due to a
shortened operating life, with that approach.

SHIELDS
The Spatial Heterodyne Interferometric Emission Line
Dynamics Spectrometer was a NASA Satellite (with a
great acronym) launched in 2021.

WMAP
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe was
launched in 2001, and operated until turned off in 2010.
It measured temperature differences in the cosmic
microwave background. This is, essentially, the left-over
radiant heat from the Big Bang. The follow-on to WMAP
is ESA's Planck spacecraft. WMAP helped establish a
standard model of Cosmology. In this model, the

57
Universe is dominated by dark energy.

The spacecraft had sun shields and thermal radiators to

keep the low noise amplifiers to 90 degrees Kelvin or
below. It was located at the L2 Lagrange point, a gravity
null.

The spacecraft is now a zombie-sat in a graveyard orbit.

It's legacy lives on in its data, which is publicly available.
(see, resources).

Sampex
This mission was the Solar Anomalous and
Magnetospheric Particle Explorer, launched in 1992 into
a polar orbit. It was a collaborative effort between NASA
and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics
in Germany. It had a three-year planned life time, but
continued to supply data through 2004.

Sampex included a telescope for large ions, an ion

composition analyzer, a mass spectrometer, and a proton-
electron telescope

Sampex Operations was conducted from the Goddard

Space Flight Center. At the end of its mission life, control
was transferred to near-by Bowie State University, to use
as a teaching tool for aspiring Satellite Controllers.

IBEX
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer was launched in
2008, with the task of mapping the boundary between our

58
solar system and interstellar space. This is currently
thought to be around 90 AU, where the solar wind slows
to subsonic speed.

IBEX is in a sun-orientation, in a highly elliptical Earth

orbit. It has two energetic neutral atom imagers, and
electrostatic analyzer, an a particle counter It records
particle counts in two bands, low and high energy.

It did an orbit adjustment in 2011 that will allow a useful

lifespan of 40 years, for all the electronics hold out. So
far, so good. The mission control center is located on the
Orbital Sciences' Dulles facility in Virginia.

SDO
The Solar Dynamics Observatory has been on station
since 2010, observing the Sun. It was part of NASA's
Living with a Star Program. This sought new knowledge
about the Sun-Earth System.

It is operated from GSFC, and is still returning useful

data. By studying the sun's emissions, the Science Team
is learning more about Space Weather, which influences
the Earth.

The spacecraft images the Sun in ten different

wavelengths. It has three instruments: the Helio-seismic
and Magnetic Imager (HMI), the Atmospheric Imaging
Assembly (AIA), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability
Experiment (EVE). HMI gives continuous full disk
coverage at a high spatial resolution. AIA takes images of

59
the solar disk in 10 different wavelengths, every 10
seconds. EVE measures the extreme ultraviolet irradiance
of the Sun. The instruments take an image of the Sun
every second. That is a lot of data.

Ulysses
Ulysses was a solar polar orbiter, a joint effort between
NASA and ESA in 1990. It was launched in 1990, and
collected data until 2009.

The mission was planned to observe the Sun at all

latitudes, requiring the spacecraft to leave the plane of
the ecliptic. For this, it used a gravity assist at Jupiter.
The launch was delayed, as it was originally manifested
on Shuttle Challenger.

Power was supplied by an RTG instead of solar panels,

since the mission went to Jupiter first. Newer model solar
arrays can operate successfully at Jupiter.

Radio waves generated by plasma were studied with long

(72m) antennas. There was also an x-ray detector, two
scintillators, and several magnetometers. A scintillator
exhibits luminescence – it glows when struck by a
particle, making a good particle detector.

The mission was extended several times, as the

spacecraft was working well, and valuable data was
being obtained. Besides the Sun data, valuable
information was obtained at Jupiter, and during the
cruise.

60
Ulysses showed the complexity of the the Sun's magnetic
field; the fact that there was a lot more “space dust”
coming into the solar system than thought, and that the
Sun's magnetic field was weaker than thought.

IXPE
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer was officially
announced early in 2017. It will consist of three identical
telescopes, and will be used to measure the polarization
of cosmic x-rays. This provides insight into the physics
of the objects that generated the x-rays, including black
holes, pulsars, neutron stars, quasars, remains of
supernovae, and galactic nuclei. It should be ready to fly
in 2021. It is being built by Ball Aerospace in Colorado,
for the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. NASA
is collaborating with the Italian Space Agency, and
several U. S. Universities.

UVC
The Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph was deployed
on the Descartes Highlands of the lunar surface by the
Astronauts of the Apollo-16 mission in 1972. It was
tripod mounted and had a Schmidt camera with a 20
degree field of view for imaging, and could operate as a
spectrograph. The astronauts removed the film cartridge,
and returned it to Earth. The images are available from a
NASA archive.

IUE
Here's another mission I worked on, the International

61
Ultraviolet Explorer. The project with joint with NASA,
ESA, and the UK's Engineering Research Council. It was
designed to operate for 3 years, but lasted for 18. It was
shut down for financial, not technical reasons. It has the
distinction of being the first satellite observatory to be
operated in real-time by astronomers. There were over
100,000 observations made, from its position in
geosynchronous orbit. The primary mirror was 45 cm in
diameter. There were dual redundant cameras in the short
and long wave areas. IUE imaged Halley's comet in
1986. In 1987, it caught a supernova exploding in the
Large Magellanic Cloud. It did extensive characterization
of the interstellar medium. IUE discovered the galactic
Corona, a halo of hot gas around the Milky Way.

IUE used GSFC's Multi-Mission Modular Spacecraft

(MMS) architecture. Although it came equipped with 6
gyros for attitude sensing, eventually five of these failed,
but operational work-arounds used the fine error sensors,
the remaining gyro, and the sun sensor to extend mission
life. In 1995, the usage and thus cost was redistributed
1/3 NASA, 2/3 ESA. The satellite remained operational
and provided data until September of 1996. It remains in
geosynchronous orbit, just another zombie sat. In the
future we may be able to retrieve and return of these
memorable spacecraft, and alleviate the orbital debris
problem at the same time. Any one at Smithsonian Air &
Space interested?
All of the IUE data is available in the IUE Archives,
hosted at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the
campus of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,

62
MD.

EUVE
The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer was launched in 1992,
and operated until 2001. (Did I work on this? I can't
remember.) The spacecraft observed in short wave
ultraviolet, 7-76 nm. It accomplished an all-sky survey in
the extreme uv. It also studied the interstellar medium in
the uv. It finished up its mission, and re-entered the
atmosphere in 2002. It's data can be found on the
National Space Science Data Center Coordinated
Archive, at NASA Goddard.

IRIS
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph was
launched in 2013, and is still operating at this writing. It
was designated as Explorer 94. It is a NASA-Ames
mission, with instruments supplied by the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory and Lockheed Martin Solar
and Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL). It's data is
collected as high-resolution images, and fed to advanced
computer models to help understand how energy and
matter move from the Sun's surface to its outer
atmosphere. It focuses on the Sun's chromosphere, the
lowest part of the solar atmosphere. This area may be the
spawning grounds of the Coronal Mass Ejections
(CME's) that threaten orbiting satellites. Also, in the
Sun's atmosphere, temperatures can reach a million
degrees (Fahrenheit or Celsius, doesn't matter), where the
surface temperature is only a few thousand degrees.

63
IBEX
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer was a NASA mission
launched in 2008. It is in a sun-oriented Earth orbit. It has
dual energetic neutral imagers, Hi and Lo. It collects
particle counts in two energy regions. IBEX generally
detects 600 particles per day, 500 in the high range, and
100 in the low. It has detected neutral atoms from outside
out solar system, which differed from the home-grown
variety. IBEX's orbit was tweaked in 2011 by raising its
perigee 30,000 km, avoiding some lunar gravitational
effects. It is still delivering data.

GALEX
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer was launched in 2003,
and operated for 9 years. It is in a circular orbit around
the Earth. After its primary mission goals were achieved
in a little over two years, it continued to operate for
another seven. It was placed in stand-by mode in 2012,
due to funding issues. Operations were transferred to the
California Institute of Technology, and it operated until
2012. It did observations in the ultraviolet, gaining
information on star formation. It observed hundreds of
thousands of other galaxys, and looked at the rate of star
formation in each.

CHIPS
The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Spectrometer was another
2003 mission, the first of the University-class Explorers
operated by the University of California, Berkeley. It is
an all-sky spectroscopy mission, focusing on the diffuse

64
background, at wavelengths of 90-260 Angstrom. This
band has previously been neglected. At launch, it was
expected to operate for 1 year. After 5 years, it was
placed in safe-hold status.
Chips has the distinct of being the first mission to
implement operations via the Internet.

FUSE
The Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, was a NASA
Project, joint with CNES. It was operated by Johns
Hopkins University, Applied Physics Lab, launched in
June 1999. It observed in the far ultraviolet, 90.5-119.5
nanometers. It had an objective of characterizing the
stellar processing time of deuterium left over from the
Big Bang. It had a series of failures on the spacecraft bus
side, and its final reaction wheel failed in 2007, and it
was no longer able to maintain pointing attitude.
I worked on this, and baby-sat the spacecraft during
extensive thermal/vacuum testing at GSFC.

Wfirst
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope launched in
2009. It was a NASA/GSFC mission, and observed in the
infrared spectrum. It has a 2.4 meter field of view
telescope. It has an infrared camera, and a Coronograph.
That instrument is small field of view, but high contrast,
in the near infrared and visible spectrum. These mission
grew out of a joint NASA-DOE's Joint Dark Energy
Mission. The spacecraft also assists in a census of Exo-
planets. It may be able to use its chronograph for direct

65
observation of these interesting objects. At the moment,
the FY2019 budget has the mission being canceled due to
ongoing costs.

Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe built at JHU-APL for GSFC, has
just launched in a mission to monitor the Sun from a near
position of about 8 solar radii. Why won't it burn up? It
has a highly eccentric orbit, which allows it to cool off
periodically. It will spend 11 days close to the Sun, and
158 days, further out, cooling off. It also has a massive
heat shield. (The old joke was, if you launch a solar
mission, do it at night.) The probe will use seven gravity
assists over seven years from Venus to establish its orbit
at the Sun. This is a maneuver that taps some of the
planets energy to slingshot the satellite where you want
it.

Parker will approach the Sun to less than 9 solar radii,

where it will be in the outer solar corona. It uses small
solar panels, some of which retract behind the heat
shield. It is the first in being a spacecraft named after a
living scientist, a solar astrophysicist, Professor Eugene
Parker at University of Chicago. He was 91 at launch.

The solar probe concept goes back to a Solar Orbiter

project in the 1990. It was to use a gravity assist from
Jupiter, but Parker didn't have to go that far. The Venus
flybys will be completed by 2024.

The spacecraft is protected by a solar shield. It will face

66
an intensity of 650 kilowatts per square meter. The
shield, made of reinforced carbon-carbon is 4.5 inches
thick. The temperature of the sun-facing side will get to
2,500 degrees F. The shield is covered by a layer of white
alumina to reduce heat absorption. It was estimated that
the spacecraft would be inoperable within seconds if the
shield were not in place. There are two solar arrays for
power. One is retracted behind the shield at 2.5 AU.
Another smaller array continues to collect power, and is
liquid cooled.

Instruments include direct measurements of magnetic

fields, measurements of energetic protons, electrons, and
heavy ions, a wide field optical imager, an analysis of
solar wind constituents.

Launch and deployment went smoothly, and testing is

being conducted. The first science data is expected by the
end of 2018.

RHESSI
Rhessi, the Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic
Imager, was launched in 2002. It observes in some
wavelengths common with the Compton and Chandra
missions. It is permanently pointed toward the Sun, and
observes solar flares in the hard x-ray through gamma ray
range. Rhessi was the first spacecraft to measure gamma
ray flashes from terrestrial thunderstorms. Luckily, its
operating life spanned a full eleven year solar cycle. The
mission operated until 2018, as this book was being
prepared. Its results are being archived, and made

67
available.

SWAS
The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite operated
from 1998-2004. It's far infrared/microwave telescope
was designed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory. Its mission was to collect data on
interstellar clouds, and look into the processes for stellar
and planetary formation.

SWAS had been shut down in 2004, but was brought

back to operation to support he Deep Impact Mission, for
comet 9P/Tempel in 2005. SWAS analyzed the water
ejected from the comet due to the impact. It was then
shut down again, with the possibility of bringing it out of
hibernation again if it is needed.

WIRE
The Wide Field Infrared Explorer was launched in 1999
into a polar orbit. It was to conduct a four-month-long
infrared survey of the entire sky, looking for starburst
galaxies and proto-galaxies.
Soon after launch, an on-orbit accident resulted in the
rapid depletion of the solid hydrogen cyrogen, needed to
cool the telescope to operating temperatures. However,
the star tracker still worked, and was used for long-term
photometric monitoring of bright stars. The spacecraft
was also used as an on-orbit teaching tool for aspiring
satellite controllers at a local college.
The spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere in 2011. The

68
science goals of WIRE were taken up by the Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

WIND
WIND is a NASA mission to study radio waves and
plasma in the solar wind. Along the way to the L1
Lagrange point, it was used to study the magnetosphere
and near-lunar environment in collaboration with the
SOHO and ACE spacecraft. The spacecraft is currently
operation as of this writing. It has 50 years of station-
keeping fuel, but the electronics will give out long before
then. It is operated from Goddard Space Flight Center.

Alexis (LANL)
The Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors is a
project of the (U. S.) Los Alamos National Laboratory. It
can focus low energy x-rays or extreme ultraviolet. It was
launched in 1973, as an Air Force mission. It scanned
half the sky at a time, facing away from the Sun.
Astronomers then looked for a visual counterpart to the
extreme x-ray observations. The mission operated until
2005.

Radio Astronomy Explorer

RAE was officially Explorer 49. It was a NASA Mission
in 1968, equipped with two 750 foot long antennas, and a
120 foot long dipole antenna. It observed in the
frequencies between 0.2 and 9.2 MHz. Because RAE-A
had significant interference from Earth, the follow-on
RAE-B went to lunar orbit. It was launched in 1973, and
listened in on frequencies from 25 kHz to 13 Mhz. It had

69
a 229 meter v-antenna, a 183 m v-antenna, and a 37
meter dipole. The spacecraft was stabilized in a gravity
gradient orientation. All of both missions' data is
archived in the National Space Science Data Center.

Solar Orbiter 2020

The Solar Orbiter 2020 was launched in February of that
year. It is tasked with taking the closest images of the
Sunever taken.

POLAR
A sister mission to WIND involves the Polar satellite,
studying the polar magnetosphere and aurorae. It was
launched in 1996, and returned data until 2008. It
conducted multi-wavelength imaging of the aurorae,
measured the entry of plasma into the polar
magnetosphere and the geomagnetic tail, looked at the
flow of plasma to and from the ionosphere, and
determined the deposition of particle energy in the
ionosphere and upper atmosphere. It had eleven science
instruments. These included various electromagnetic
field instruments, three sensors for particles, and three
imagers, for the visible, ultraviolet, and x-ray spectrum.

MSX
The mid-course space experiment was a project of the U.
S. Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. It maps bright
infrared sources in space. This data can be used for
peaceful purposes as well. It was launched in 1996, and
observed in infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. MSX
shares data with NASA, and is available in the Infrared

70
Space Archive of NASA's Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center.
Spitzer

When Spitzer was launched in 2003, it had a planned

mission life of 2-5 years. It is still operating and returning
useful data Lyman Spitzer was an early proponent of
telescopes in space.

Spitzer is an infrared telescope, which was cooled by a

supply of liquid helium. When the Spitzer mission
expended it's liquid helium supply in 2009, it was
operated as “Warm Spitzer,” in extended mission. Only
two of the instruments are operable without the coolant,
but that's better than nothing.

Spitzer was placed in orbit around the sun, trailing the

Earth, and drifting further outward at a slow pace. Not
being in orbit around the Earth, it is not exposed to the
heat output of the Earth, and better observations at lower
temperatures can be achieved.

The primary mirror is 85 centimeters in diameter, and

was cooled to 5.5 degrees K when the liquid helium was
available. This same mirror material is being used on
JWST.

The instruments include the IRAC, an infrared camera

operating in two pairs of chosen wavelengths with a 256
x 256 detector array, and the infrared spectrometer
observes at four wavelengths, using 128 x128 element

71
detectors. The Multi-band Imaging Photometer has three
detector arrays. One of the important observations the
Spitzer made was of exoplanets. This was the first time
an exoplanet was imaged. Usually, they are discovered
by their gravitational effects on their parent star. The
surface temperature of the exoplanet was determined, and
went
on to make additional contributions in the areas of
formation of stars. It discovered the double helix nebula,
so called because of its shape. It observed a collision
between two planets orbiting a distant star, as well as a
gas giant some 13,000 light years away. Spitzer and HST
collaborated on the discovery.

Particle Detection
Besides waves, satellite have been constructed to detect
particles. Proton-1 and -2 were launched by the USSR in
1965. The High Energy Astrophysics Observatory
HEAO-3, was a NASA mission, launched in 1965. The
AMS-01 was a NASA particle detection satellite
launched in 1998. It operated for a little more than a
month. The acronym means Affordable Modular
Optimized Satellite. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
was a 2011 NASA Project,

NASA's Great Observatories

NASA's Great Observatory's Program included four
telescopes launched in 1990 through 2003 in Earth orbit,
HST for visible light, the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory, the Chandra X-ray observatory, and the

72
Spitzer Space Telescope, operating in the infrared part of
the spectrum. A forerunner of these missions was the
1966 Orbiting Astronomical Observatory.

These space missions were named after notable

astronomers. They observe in various wavelengths, and
seek to discover knowledge of our own solar system, and
others in our galaxy and beyond.
The Chandra Observatory was originally named AXAF;
Spitzer was originally called SIRTF. Both Chandra and
Spitzer were outstanding astronomers. Spitzer wrote
about the advantages of a telescope above the atmosphere
in 1946.

CGRO
The massive Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
operated from 1991 through 2000. It's job was to detect
high energy photons. It had four telescopes, for X-rays
and Gamma Rays. It was delivered to orbit by the Space
shuttle. At end-of-life, it was de-orbited. It was named
after Arthur Compton, a Nobel Prize winner in Gamma
ray physics. It's target, the X-rays and Gamma rays, do
not penetrate, so astronomers were literally “in the dark”
until Compton reached orbit. CGRO weighed some
37,000 pounds, and operated from low Earth orbit.

The Burst and Transient Source Experiment was

searching for gamma ray bursts, which it saw about once
per day, doing all-sky surveys. A burst could last for 100
seconds.

73
The Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment
detected gamma rays in the energy range 0.05 to 10
MEV. There were four detectors. Both the source, and the
background radiation were observed.

The Imaging Compton Telescope was a collaboration of

universities and research institutions from the U.S. and
Europe. It observed in the 0.75 t 30 MeV range,
measuring both energy and arrival angle.

The Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope

covered the high energy range from 20 MeV to 30 Gev. It
completed the first all-sky survey in the range above 100
MeV.

The observatory was deliberately re-entered into the

atmosphere after a failed gyroscope. It was not designed
for in-orbit repair. The controlled reentry was NASA's
first, and was successful.

Chandra
This mission is named after a Indian-American
astrophysicist. It was originally the Advanced X-ray
Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), and launched by the
Shuttle in 1999. It had a highly elliptical orbit, reaching
about 1/3 of the distance to the moon, to keep it out of
Earth's radiation belts. The mission continues to return
useful data, after exceeding its lifetime estimate of 5
years. It is now in its 19th year of observations. Chandra
is the Sanskrit word for moon.

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Chandra is in a 64-hour orbit around Earth, voyaging out
about one third of the way to the moon. It remains above
Earth's radiation belts for most of its orbit. It can observe
for up to 55 hours in its 65 hour orbital period.

X-ray telescopes such as Chandra use primary mirrors

coated with gold or iridium. Also, the spacecraft can do
spectroscopy with transmission gratings.

Among its accomplishments are the images of X-rays in

the shock wave of a supernova, X-rays in a gamma ray
burst, an update of the Hubble constant, Jupiter's polar x-
rays, and the list goes on and on.

Spitzer
When Spitzer was launched in 2003, it had a planned
mission life of 2-5 years. It has been operating for 15
years now. Lyman Spitzer was an early proponent of
telescopes in space.
Spitzer is an infrared telescope, which was cooled by a
supply of liquid helium. When the Spitzer mission
expended it's liquid helium supply in 2009, it was
operated as “Warm Spitzer,” in extended mission. Only
two of the instruments are operable without the coolant,
but that's better than nothing.
Spitzer was placed in orbit around the sun, trailing the
Earth, and drifting further outward at a slow pace. Not
being in orbit around the Earth, it is not exposed to the
heat output of the Earth, and better observations at lower

75
temperatures can be achieved.
The primary mirror is 85 centimeters in diameter, and
was cooled to 5.5 degrees K when the liquid helium was
available. This same mirror material is being used on
JWST.
The instruments include the IRAC, an infrared camera
operating in two pairs of chosen wavelengths with a 256
x 256 detector array, and the infrared spectrometer
observes at four wavelengths, using 128 x128 element
detectors. The Multiband Imaging Photometer has three
detector arrays.

One of the important observations the Spitzer made was

of exoplanets. This was the first time an exoplanet was
imaged. Usually, they are discovered by their effects on
their parent star. The surface temperature of the exoplanet
was determined, and went on to make additional
contributions in the areas of formation of stars. It
discovered the double helix nebula, so called because of
its shape because of its shape. It observed a collision
between two planets orbiting a distant star, as well as a
gas giant some 13,000 light years away. Spitzer and HST
collaborated on the discovery.

HST
Earth-based telescopes have the problem that they have
to look through the atmosphere. One way to solve that is
to put them in orbit. This was suggested in 1923 by
Hermann Oberth. The Large Space Telescope Project was
funded in 1978. The spacecraft was named after Edwin

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Hubble.
The Hubble Space Telescope was placed in orbit by the
Space Shuttle in 1990. It is still operating as of this
writing. It is managed by the Goddard Space Flight
Center, and the data goes to the Space Telescope Science
Institute on the Johns Hopkins University Campus in
Baltimore, MD. The idea was introduced in a paper by
Lyman Spitzer in 1946, well before the “space age.”
Mention of the advantage of such a technique was
documented as early as 1837. Hubble has been able to
work for 31 years with 4 servicing mission by the shuttle.
Got our money's worth on this one.

The main mirror is almost 8 feet in diameter. The

telescope operates in the visible spectrum, as well as near
ultraviolet and near infrared, which don't make it through
the atmosphere. Precursor missions include the Orbiting
Solar Observatory, and the Orbiting Astronautical
Observatory, both from NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center. Hubble uses a Cassegrainian reflector design,
from Marshall Space Flight Center, and built by Perkin-
Elmer. They subcontracted the mirror to Kodak, using
Corning glass. This was coated with aluminum.
After only a few weeks in orbit, it became obvious that
the mirror was flawed. Corrective optics were designed,
and several Shuttle flights got the orbiting facility back to
its desired accuracy. At the same time, updated
equipment was installed, and a failed module was
replaced. Being able to do maintenance in orbit was
invaluable.

77
At the time, a Final Systems test was not done on HST to
save money. In retrospect, this may not have been the
best choice.
Hubble has a 2.4 meter, 1-ton, mirror, with corrective
optics installed in orbit by astronauts from the Space
Shuttle. The updates took five Shuttle Missions, and also
included change-out of some of the instruments. The
onboard computers were replaced, and the original tape
recorder was replaced by a solid state unit All six
gyroscopes were replaced, as well as the solar panels.
This illustrated the versatility of repairs in space. It is still
returning useful data, 32 years after it was put in orbit.

Originally, observation data were stored onboard on tape

recorders, and downlinked to one of two tracking stations
at white Sands. During servicing, a solid state recorder
replaced the tapes. In a normal week, Hubble supply's
140 gigabytes of data.

Hubble currently downlinks about 140 gigabytes of

observation data weekly. The Hubble camera is 16
megapixels. Goddard does spacecraft operations for
Hubble, and the Johns Hopkins University Space
Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore is responsible
for the science data. Anyone can apply for observing time
on the telescope. It will max out your credit card. You
have to do your own analysis if you are not affiliated
with a U. S. Institution. Over 15,000 papers have been
published based on Hubble data.

Like most Earth-based observatories, scientists can apply

78
to use the HST for observations. Competition is fierce
for observing time. In the period 1990-1997, the director
of the StScI allowed amateur astronomers access to the
facility for free, thirteen amateurs were involved.
The mission was launched in 1990, repaired and updated
in space by four Shuttle Missions, and continues to return
good data One of Hubble's notable achievements was the
determination of the rate of expansion of the Universe.

The contributions of the HST mission to our knowledge

of the Universe are impressive. Hubble observations now
put the estimated age of the Universe at around 14 x 10 9
years.
The Hubble may last another 15-20 years. It is not
currently feasible to mount another repair mission, as the
shuttle fleet has been decommissioned. A robotic
servicing mission may be attempted.
Hubble went into a safe-hold mode, due to a gyro failure.
It can continue to operate, although it only has 2 working
gyros for pointing and positioning. The original 3
mechanical gyros, replaced on a Shuttle mission, are
failed. One of the three replacement units is balky. If the
third gyro behaves itself, the mission can continue. It can
operate in a reduced mode, with only two. The spacecraft
is designed for servicing, but we don't have the Shuttle
fleet anymore. A robotic servicer is being developed at
GSFC that might prove handy. It is good to have HST
working when JWST becomes operational, as they can
work together on observations.
Although we don't have a shuttle anymore to service

79
HST, it could still be serviceded by Sierra Nevada Corp,
or Space-X.

JWST
The James Webb Space Telescope is the follow-on the
HST. It uses updated technology and a new approach for
the mirror, using 18 hexagonal segments, that are
individually adjustable. The resulting mirror is 6.5 meters
in diameter. JWST observes in long wavelength visible
through the mid-infrared. The spacecraft will be placed in
a halo orbit at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point about 1.5
million miles from Earth. It has a large sun shield to
block the Sun's light form interfering with the
observations. The project was the top pick in NASA's
2000 Decadal Survey. Work has been going on since
1989, primarily at the Goddard Space Flight Center, As
of this writing, the telescope has been positioned at the
SunEarth L2 point, and is operational.

Why observe in the infrared, when it's hard? Mostly

because space dust blocks visible light.

JWST is a joint project of NASA, ESA, and the Canadian

Space Agency. In all, fourteen countries were involving
in construction of the spacecraft. John Mather, the Senior
Project Scientist, had previously received the 2006 Nobel
Prize in Physics for the project.

Partially to avoid the HST problem with the main mirror,

the JWST has a large set of small, adjustable mirrors,
individually controllable with 6 actuators each. They are

80
gold-coated beryllium. Since it observes in the infrared
part of the spectrum, the detectors have to be cooled to
single digits above absolute zero. A large sun shield will
be used to shadow the spacecraft form the Sun, Earth,
and moon. The solar wind will push the sun shade and
thus the spacecraft around. But, JWST has a trim tab to
counter this.
The project was a concept in the mid-1990's and
construction was completed in November of 2016. It is in
testing at the moment. It was originally called the Next
Generation Space Telescope (NGST), but was named
after James Webb, the second NASA administrator.
Where Hubble has a 2.4 meter single-piece mirror, JWST
has an 18 segment mirror for a combined size of 6.5
meters. These segments are folded for launch, and deploy
in orbit. It has curved secondary and tertiary mirrors.
Instruments include a near infrared camera, a near
infrared spectrograph, a mid-infrared instrument, and a
near infrared imager with a slit-less spectrograph. The
telescope is expected to see extra-solar planets (planets
around other stars). The telescope masses 6.5 tons. It will
be launched on an Ariane vehicle. It will use NASA's
Deep Space Network for data transmission.
The instrument set includes a near-infrared camera
(NIRCam), and spectrograph (NIRSpec). These have 32
megapixels. It uses a new type of gyro, the
hemispherical resonance gyro, for attitude sensing. With
essentially no moving parts, this type of gyro should last
a lot longer. The spacecraft has about 60 gigabytes of
onboard storage, and uses lithium-ion batteries. Onboard,

81
it runs Java scripts for operations.
It is serviceable and can be refueled.. It has a projected
lifetime of 5 years, with a goal of twice that. Originally
estimated to cost a half-billion dollars in 1997, the
current cost looks in the vicinity of 8.8 billion dollars.
Actually, the spacecraft will include a docking ring for an
Orion manned spacecraft (which has yet to fly), so in
theory, it might be serviceable.
One of the more interesting tasks for the observatory will
be to assist in the search and characterization of exo-
planets. It will be able characterize the atmospheres of
potentially habitable exoplanets. It may supply some new
numbers to plug into the Drake equation

Other Life in our Solar System?

The Gaia hypothesis says that any planet harboring life
will have an atmosphere in disequilibrium.

In our own solar system, there are planets and such that
definitely do not harbor life, and those that could be a
good candidate. We have visited all of the planets, at least
with a fly-by, and quite a few of their moons. By direct
sampling, we can search the candidates likely to harbor
life. Included in this is the large asteroid Ceres, actually a
dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. Ceres is know to have
water ice beneath an outer crust. Water ice and a rocky
surface are essential as a potential life habitat. Estimates
for the habitable zone in our solar system goes from 0.38
to 10 AU. That includes everything out to Saturn.
Life can develop on a planet, or be transferred to it from

82
another body. We don't have a clue which of these
worked on Earth. We tend to anthropomorphize other
planets, assuming their life will be similar to ours. That's
a good starting point, for all we know right now. NASA
considers currently that life requires liquid water,
conditions that are favorable for the assembly and
continuance of complex molecules, and appropriate
energy sources. As we discover more and more
exoplanets, outside of our home solar system, we have
more places to look for life. Question number one is, do
they have lift? Question number two follows on with, “is
it the same as us?” These numbers change daily, but there
are more than 4,000 known exoplanets, of which about
half are in their star's habitable zone, as we define it for
Earth life.
We make the assumption that life elsewhere uses carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, as we have no counter
examples. From these four elements, we can get amino
acids, which can form proteins. Sulfur is required for
proteins, and phosphorus is needed for DNA and RNA.
The Miller-Urey experiment showed in 1935 that simple
inorganic compounds in a primordial atmosphere can,
with sufficient energy available, of amino acids. Good
Starting point. What we don't want are energetic gamma
rays, ionizing radiation, or excessive gravitational forces.
It will be operated from the same facility that Hubble is,
the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the campus of
the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.
Delivery of the spacecraft for Integration and Test at
Northrop Grumman was delayed into 2019, with .launch

83
on December 235, 2021. There was a problem with the
deployment test of the sunshield. Nominal mission life is
ten years. One limitation will be the station-keeping
propellant supply. Another possible problem is a launch
slip. The 6200 kg spacecraft went on an Ariane-5 vehicle,
which is being phased out in favor of the Ariane 6. HST
will still be operational when JWST makes it to orbit, and
the two can be used together. The ESA telescope
Herschel will be in the vicinity of L2 when JWST
arrives.

JWST is operated from the same facility that Hubble is,

the Space Telescope Science Institute, on the campus of
the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. This is
also the Science and Operations Center for Hubble. Data
to and from JWST will use NASA's Deep Space
Network. Data will be processed and calibrated, and then
distributed online to astronomers world wide. If you are a
well known astronomer in the community, you can
submit proposals for observations. Astronomers will have
1 year of exclusive access to the data, after which it will
be put in a public online archive. There is a General
Observers Program, a Guaranteed Time Observation
Program, and A Director's Discretionary Early Release
Program. Hubble will produce more than 450 Gigabytes
of data per day.
Delivery of the spacecraft for Integration and Test at
Northrop Grumman was delayed into 2019, with the
launch slipping to 2021. There was a problem with the
deployment test of the sunshield. Nominal mission life is
ten years. One limitation will be the station-keeping

84
propellant supply. Another possible problem is a launch
slip. The 6200 kg spacecraft was launched by an Ariane-
5 vehicle,

I was able to visit JWST several times, when it was in

Goddard's massive clean room. Some of the components
were tested in Goddard's Space Environmental Simulator
(thermal-vacuum chamber). The entire telescope
wouldn't fit, though. Later in the program, JWST was
taken to the large chamber at Johnson Space Center, the
largest in the world, developed for the Apollo program.

There is a point, on a line between the Earth and the Sun,

where the gravity of the two body's cancel out. Strangely,
a satellite can actually orbit that point, just as if there was
a mass there. In the “Three body problem” of orbital
mechanics, there are five such points. The one between
two bodys is the easiest to grasp. That is not where JWST
is going. It's a little more complicated than that.

In the larger sense, there is a point behind each primary

(such as the Sun, moon, or a planet) and one off to each
side. The points are nulls in the combined gravity field.
(feel free to jump forward at any time). So, JWST is at
the L2 point of the Sun-Earth system. This is located at
1.5 million miles further away from the Earth than the
Moon. In actuality, JWST shares Earth's orbit around the
Sun, at a distance. It is currently impossible to service the
spacecraft, so we have to get it right.

GAIA
The European Space Agency's GAIA spacecraft was

85
launched in 2013. It is an astrometry mission, scheduled
to operate until 2025. It is supposed to produce a catalog
of 1 billion objects, as well as a precise threedimensional
map of astronomical objects throughout the Milky Way
and map their motions, which encode the origin and
subsequent evolution of the Milky Way.

Non-NASA Space Telescopes

ESA's version of NASA's Decadal survey is called
“Cosmic Vsion”

Granate
The International Astrophysical Observatory was a Joint
Soviet-Russian Project with France, Denmark, and
Bulgaria. After launch in 1989, it operated until 1988. It
had seven instruments sensing from Gamma ray to Xray,

The Main instrument coevered the spectrum from X-ray

to Gamma Ray, The spacecraft weighted 4.4 metric
tons,.It operated for 9 years before entry.

Euclid
Euclid is a ESA near-infrared space telescope, currently
in development by ESA. It will study dark energy and
dark matter, in hopes of gaining insight on the expansion
of the Universe. It is to include a 600 million by 600
million pixel camera in the visible spectrum. It is
estimated that, over the mission lifetime, over 10 billion
sources will be observed by the spacecraft. There are 15
countries collaborating on the project. It has passed the
preliminary design review stage. The Prime Contractor is

86
Thales Alenia Space.

Plato and Ariel are observatory missions, planned to be

put in the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point in 2026.

ESA's Solar orbiter 2020

This launched in Februrary, 2020. It took the closest
images of the Sun, focusing on the polar regions. It's
images can be compared with Earth-based images taken
at the same time.

Brite Constellation
The Bright Target Explorer is a Constellation of Six
nanosats. It is a joint project of Universities in Austria,
Canada, and Poland. The spacecraft are a 20 centimeter
cube. Five of the units are currently operating, and one
has been lost.

USSR Missions
This section discusses some space telescope by the
Soviet Union.

Proton
This Ruassian mission, circa 1965, studied high and
ultra-high energy particles. The launch vehicles were also
named Proton. Three were launched from 1965-1968.
They all were terminated by [Link]

Gamma
This was a Gamma Ray telescope spacecraft, launched in

87
1990. It was a joint project with France, and operated for
2 years.

Relikt-1
This was a Soviet microwave background anisotropy
instrument onboard the Prognoz satellite, circa 1983.

JAXA (Japan)

GAP
This is the Gamma Ray Burst Polarimeter. It was
launched in 2010to a heliocentric orbit. It was a project
of JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency.

Suzaku
This was a Japanese telescope project joint with NASA,
in 2005. It had a useful life of ten years.

Hisaki (Sprint-A)
This was a ultraviolet observer, was launched in 2013.

Infrared Telescope in Space

This was a joint ISAS & NASDA mission

XRISM
the X-ray imaging and spectroscopey mission is planned
for a 2022 launch into Low Earth Orbit.

88
GAP
Gamma Ray Burst Polarimeter, May 2010 launch,
heliocentric orbit.
Suzaku, joint with NASA

Hisaki (Sprint-A) was launched in 2013.

Infrared Telescope in Space – ISAS & NASDA

Astro
There were eight satellites in this Japanese series,
Astro-A, Hinotori,
Astro-B, Tenma,
Astro-C, Ginga,
Astro-D, ASCA, a Japan/USA mission.
Astro-E and EII,
Astro-F, Akari,
Astro-G, VSOP-2, canceled.
Astro-H, Hitomi (Previously, NEXT), launched 2016

HALCA
Japan launched three radio telescopes under this name.
KRT-10, the first, was attached to the Russian Salyut
station. There was a second one, and Russia sent the
third, Spelktr-R.

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Astrosat
After the success of the satellite-borne Indian X-ray
Astronomy Experiment (IXAE), which was launched in
1996, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
approved further development for a full-fledged
astronomy satellite, Astrosat, in 2004. It was launched in
2015.

NEOSSat
This mission was joint between the Romanian space
agency, the Canadian Space Agency, and the Canadian
Defence Research and Development Canada. It was a
microsatellite with a 15 centimater telescope. The camera
taskes 100 second exposures. The mission launched in
2013,

MOST
This was a visible light mission by the Canadian Space
Agency operating from 2003 through 2019.

Orion-1 and -2
Flown on the Space Station Salyut-1 in 1971 and 1973,
this was an ultraviolet telescope. It was the first manned
space observatory.

Astron
This was a Japanese UV observer operating from 1983
through 1989.

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ESA missions

Herschel
Launched in 2009, the Herschel Observatory worked
until 2013.. It was a joint NASA/ESA project, that was
capable of seeing the coldest and dustiest objects in
space. It operated until it's coolant ran out in in April
2013.

COS-B
This European Space Research Organization's satellite
studied Cosmic gamma ray sources.

Gaia
This was an ESA mission in 2013. It was designed for
Astronometry, measuring distances, positions, and
motions of stars.

XMM-Newton
The X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, also known as the High
Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission, is an ESA
mission, launched in 1999, for a nominal 10 year
mission. I supports simultaneous X-ray observation and
optical monitoring.

Hershel
ESA's Hershell Observatory operated from 2009 to 2013,
and was the largest space telescope launched until Webb.
In May of 2009, it went to the L2 Lagrange point. It had
a 3.5 meter mirror. It was able to see the coldest and

91
dustiest objects in Space. It spent a lot of time observing
star forming clouds. The mission life was determined by
the amount of coolant onboard. It ran out in 2013.

COROT
This is the Convection, Rotation et Transits planétaires. It
is a French mission operating 2006-2013 to search for
exoplanets, and observe astro-seismology of stars.

INTA
This was the Spanish Earth Observation Satellite-
Ingenio. It was part of the Spanish Earth Observation
Satellite program. It was placed in a sun synchronous
polar orbit. It was launched in 2020, but suffered a
launch failure. INTASat (SPAIN) was launched in
November, 1974, on a delta rocket from Vandenburg
AFB. It had a planned lifeline of two years. The team
included the U. Valencis, U. Southampton, U. Birginham,
Rutherford-Appleton Lab, and Medioambientales y
Tecnológicas.

BeppoSAX
This was a Italian-Dutch project operating in the X-ray
part of the spectrum. It was launched in 1996 and
decommissioned in 2002.

JAXA (Japan)
GAP, the Gamma Ray Burst Polarimeter. May 2010
launch, into heliocentric orbit.
Suzaku was a joint mission with NASA for X-ray

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astronomy. It was launched in 2005, and worked for 10
years.
Hisaki (Sprint-A) was launched in 2013.
Infrared telescope in space – ISAS & NASDA

Astro
There were eight satellites in this Japanese series,
Astro-A, Hinotori,
Astro-B, Tenma,
Astro-C, Ginga,
Astro-D, ASCA, Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and
Astrophysics.
Astro-E and EII,
Astro-F, Akari,
Astro-G, VSOP-2, cancelled.
Astro-H, Hitomi (Previosuly, NEXT)

Mikhailo Lomonosov
This was an astronomy mission by the Moscow State
University.

The International Astrophysical Observatory, was a

Russian, French,Denmark, Bulgarian mission. It went
into orbit in 19889, and exhausted its attitude control gas
in 1994.

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Astron
CCCP & France, 1983-89, an Ultraviolet mission.

Integral
The International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
was launched in 2002. It was still operating aft 20 years.

Hipparcos
This was a visible light ESA Mission in 1989 through
1983, providing precision astrometry.

ANS
The Astronomical Netherlands Satellite was launched in
1974. It is an x-ray and ultraviolet telescope. The mission
operated until June 2016. ANS could measure Xray
photons in the energy range 2 to 30 keV .

ISO
Infrared Space Observatory, ESA, NASA, Japan. Infrared
Space Observatory, was a joint project of ESA,
NASA, and Japan. It operated from 1995 to 1998. The
infrared telescope was cooled by a dewar of liquid
helium. It carried an Infrared Camera, a
photo=polarimeter, and both a short wave and long wave
spectrometer. When the liquid helium was depleted, the
mission is over

COROT
Convection, Rotation et Transits planétaires was a joint

94
effort of ESA and the National Centre for Space Studys
in France. It was launched in 2006, and operated through
2013.

XMM-Newton
This ESA Mission was also known as the High
Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray
Multi-Mirror Mission, It was launched in 1999, and
operated to 2022.

LEGRI
This was the Low Energy Gamma-Ray Imager, part of
the Spanish MINISAT Program. It operated from 1997 to
2001. The Low Energy Gamma-Ray Imager was a
Spanish project. It was launched in 1997 on a Pegasus
XL. The instrument operated from May, 1997 to
February 2002

Rosat
ROSAT was a German Project, with some instruments
built by the UK and the United States.

ABRIXAS
This was a Broadband Imaging X-ray All-Sky Survey,
project, 1996-1999.

Exosat
This was a project of the European Space Agency it was
functional from 1983-1986. It observed in the infrared.

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Pamela
The Payload for Antimatter-Mater Exploration and Light-
nuclei Astrophysics was a joint project of ISA, INFN,
RSA, DLR, and SNSB Astro.
There were eight satellites in this Japanese series. These
were the Advanced Satellites for Cosmology and
Astrophysics.
Astro-A, Hinotori, was doing a detailed study of solar
flares at solar maximum.
Astro-B, Tenma, launched in 1983, it explored x-ray
sources.
Astro-C, Ginga, had an all-sky x-ray monitor, with a
gamma ray burst detector.
Astro-D, ASCA, focused on observations of the Iron k-
band,
Astro-E and EII, X-ray observation of X-ray stars in
our galaxy as well as X-ray galaxies using a
scintillating proportional counter, a transient X-ray
source monitor, an X-ray focusing collector, a
radiation belt monitor, a gamma ray burst detector
and a star sensor. Astro-E suffered a catastrophic
launch failure in February 2020.
X-ray observation of X-ray stars in our galaxy as
well as X-ray galaxies using a scintillating
proportional counter, a transient X-ray source
monitor, an X-ray focusing collector, a radiation
belt monitor, a gamma ray burst detector and a star
sensor.

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Astron-G, VSOP-2, had been planned to be launched in
2012. It had been scheduled for 2006. It was a radio
telescope. It was cancelled due to excessive cost.
Astro-H, Hitomi was a x-ray telescope, launched in
February 2016, but contact was lost in March.

Agile
(Astro‐Rivelatore Gamma a Immagini Leggero) This was
built by Italy to observe x-rays and Gamma rays. It was
launched in 2007, and was operational in 2018

Kaisat-4
The Kaistsat-4 was an ultraviolet telescope, launched in
2003 by Korea.

Odin
This was launched by the Swedish National Space
Corporation in 2001. has a 1.1 meter telescope for a
radiometer. (Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imager
System).

Corsa and Corsa-b

These were the Cosmic Radiation Satellites, launched in
1976, The Cosmic Radiation Satellite, CORSA, had the
shape of an octagonal right prism with a maximum size
of 80 cm and a height of 65 cm. The spacecraft was spin
stabilized and capable of being pointed toward any
interesting object in the sky. Three kinds of x-ray
detectors were to look parallel and perpendicular to the
spin axis of the satellite. With these detectors, x-ray

97
sources could be observed over a wide-band energy range
and a short time
resolution. A core memory of 4000 words would have
stored the data during the time when the satellite was not
in contact with a telemetry station. The CORSA satellite
was launched on February 6, 1976, but failed to achieve
orbit.

[Link]
id=CORSA

Ariel Program
This was a Joint NASA-UK X-ray astronomy and cosmic
ray mission. Ariel 5 was launched in October 2014. Ariel-
6 was launched in 1979. and provided data until February
of 1982. It was built by the Marconi Company.
Secondary missions included low energy and high-energy
X-rays. The program provided data until 1982.

HXMT
CNSA - the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, from
China, It was launched in 2017. The project, was a joint
collaboration of the Ministry of Science and Technology
of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and
Tsinghua University,

LISA Pathfinder
This was an ESA mission to try to catch gravity waves,
launched on 2015, and operating to 2017. This was part
of the the Small Missions for Advanced Research in

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Technology-2, (SMART-2).

DAMPE
This is a CNSA mission in 2015, the Dark Matter Particle
Explorer .It observed in gamma rays, electrons, and
cosmic rays.

SRON
The Netherlands Institute for Space Research, is the
Dutch Institute for space research. It was founded in
1963. ROSAT was a German Project, with some
instruments built by the UK and the United States.

ABRIXAS
This mission did Broadband Imaging in the X-ray, All-
Sky Survey, [Link] was looking at variations in
dust density. It also recorede the polarization of gamma
ray bursts.

ESA/Swiss Space Agency Cheops

This was the Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite.

Some Planned Missions

This section discusses in-work and planned missions for
Space Astronomy. The more we know, the more we see
how little we really know about the Universe.
What missions get approved is determined by the
Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. This is
conducted every ten years by the National Research
Council of the National Academy of Sciences in the

99
United States. This involves determining the current
state-of-the-art, defines priorities, and make
recommendations to funding agencies.

The first effort was “Ground-Based Astronomy: A Ten-

Year Program, 1964.” This covered optical telescopes.
The second report in 1972, “Astronomy and Astrophysics
for the 1970s,” covered both ground-based and satellite
missions. The Third report was titled, “Astronomy and
Astrophysics for the 1980s .” The fifth report was
released in 1991, and titled “The Decade of Discovery in
Astronomy and Astrophysics.” Its recommendations
resulted in the Chandra observatory, and the Spitzer
Space Telescope. In 2001, the “Astronomy and
Astrophysics in the New Millennium” report was
released, suggested the Next Generation Space Telescope
(now, James Webb Space Telescope). The “New Worlds,
New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics” report
was released in 2010. It suggested that the focus should
include, “the nature of dark energy; the structure,
distribution, and evolution of exoplanetary systems;
detailed examination of extreme processes including
supernovae and the merger of super-dense objects; and
how galaxies and galaxy clusters formed from the early
hot universe.” This ambitious program lead to the
WFIRST mission and several new ground based
observatories. Wfirst (Wide Field Infrared survey
Telescope) was renamed Nancy Grace Roman after a
notable American Astronomer who served as NASA's
Chief of Astronomy. It will launch no later than May of
2027.

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This telescope Telescope will launch in 2027. It is a
NASA/GSFC mission, and will observe in the
infraredspectrum. It was to be named the Wide Field
Infrared Survey Telescope, but that was changed to the
Nancy

Grace Roman Space telescope, to honor the astronomer

known as the Mother of Hubble. She was Chief of
Astronomy at the Goddard Space Flight Center. It has a
2.4 meter field of view telescope, like Hubble. It has an
infrared camera, and a Coronograph. That instrument is
small field of view, but high contrast, in the near infrared
and visible spectrum. These mission grew out of a joint
NASA-DOE's Joint Dark Energy Mission. The spacecraft
also assists in a census of Exo-planets. It may be able to
use its chronograph for direct observation of these
interesting objects.

It will have the ability to block the light from the parent
star, to better study the exo-planets. It will be looking for
Earth -size planets within the habitable zone. It will study
the planet's atmosphere to check for transformation of the
atmosphere by life. This goes far beyond what we can do
today, even with JWST, where exoplanets are detected by
their gravitation effects on their “Sun.”

The Russians placed a space-based telescope in orbit as

part of the 5th module of the Mir Space Station. They are
planning a follow-on in 2019, termed SPKTR-RG. This
will be a joint mission, with Germany. It is to conduct a
4-year X-ray study.

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There was a previous space telescope attached to the
American Skylab facility, the Apollo Telescope Mount.
Today the in-orbit International Space Station serves as a
platform for various observing instruments, both pointing
down at Earth, and further out in Space.

Toliman (Telescope for Orbit Locus Interferometric

Monitoring of our Astronomical Neighborhood) is a
project of Breakthrough Initiatives in Australia, several
Australian University's, and JPL. It will be used to look
for planets I the Goldilocks zone around a star system
some 4 light years away. This refers to “not too hot, not
too cold, just right.”

It will focus on our neighbors Alpha Centauri and

Proxima Centauri. Toliman is the Arabic name for Alpha
Centauri. Funding has been provided by Breakthrough
Foundation's Breakthrough Initiatives.

Observatories on the Moon

Putting an observatory on the backside of the Moon has
been proposed. It's an airless environment, always
shielded from the Earth. There would be 2 weeks of good
observation time, followed by two weeks of daylight.
Communications with Earth could be maintained with a
relay satellite in a lunar “halo” orbit. Radio telescopes on
the lunar backside have the big advantage of being
shielded from the radio emissions from Earth, and can be
used continuously. Lunar material can be used for
structure, and very large mirrors can be constructed in the

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lower gravity. This can be a major project, when we get
back to the moon.

International Lunar Observatory

This is a proposed project, by the private International
Lunar Observatory Association, to put a small
observatory at the lunar south pole. This currently has an
expected launch date of 2019. The facility will be placed
on Malapert Mountain, which is 5 kilometers tall. It has
an uninterrupted line-of-sight with Earth.

NASA is looking at constructing a large mirror in situ

from lunar materials. This would be done by spincasting
a mixture of lunar soil, carbon nanotubes, and epoxy. It
helps if you have some lunar soil to try this out. Well, the
Johnson Space Center has some lunar soil, thanks to the
Apollo missions. This manufactured with local materials
approach means the facility can be much large, as it
doesn't have to be sent from Earth. The mixture of epoxy
and lunar dust is spun-cast, and forms a parabola. That is
then covered with a thin layer of aluminum. They project
that a Hubble-sized mirror would require 60kg of epoxy,
1.3 kg of nanotubes, and about a gram of aluminum.
From local sources, 600 kg of dust would be needed. The
coating of the mirror could be done easily in the near-
vacuum of the lunar surface.

Virtual Observatories
One technique used on Earth-based observatories, both
visible light and radio, is to coordinate multiple
observations from multiple locations. This technique can

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also be implemented in space. A DARPA program called
Virtual Satellite uses this technique to combine multiple
observations from different points of view. Ideally, all the
observing hardware would be homogeneous, but that's
difficult unless specific missions with a multitude of
observers are placed into orbit. A constellation of
Cubesats is one possible approach. The technique has
been used with the Swift and Spitzer spacecraft, working
with ground based observatory's.

Search for Exoplanets

One of the more exciting missions is the search for
planets of other stars than our own sun. Although there
are nearly impossible to image directly, they can be
observed as the pass through our line of sight with the
distant star, and cause a small dip in the perceived
brightness. Exo-planets are best seen from space.
A few thousand have been cataloged. Follow-on
questions are, do exo-planets have exo-moons, and can
they harbor life? To have the potential of life, the planets
have to orbit the right type of star, at the right distance,
called the Goldilocks zone (from a Fairy tale). Not too
hot, not too cold, just right.
Exoplanets are the current hot topic, and dedicated
missions have been launched to search for and
characterize them.

Kepler
Kepler's mission was to search for Earth-sized exo-

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planets. It was launched in 2009, and is operated by JPL.
It uses a photometer to measure the brightness of stars
that will dip as an exoplanet passes in front of the star.
The brightness of some 150,000 stars is monitored. It is
in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit.
In 2013, the second of four reaction wheels on the
spacecraft failed, which disrupted operations. It is not
quite a fatal failure, as the planet-hunting can continue,
under less than optimal conditions. It is currently focused
on finding habitable, Earth-like planets around Red dwarf
stars. The success count as of 2015 was 1,000 confirmed
exoplanets discovered by Kepler, later updated to 1,284
Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zones of their
Suns.
At launch, Kepler had the highest data rate of any
mission so far, because of the 95 million-pixel detector.
The primary mirror is 1.4 meters in diameter,
manufactured by Corning, who did the Hubble mirror.
What the telescope is looking for is about a 80 parts per
million decrease in brightness as the exoplanet moves in
front of its star, from the telescope's point of view.
The orbiting telescope is operated and monitored by a
control center on the Campus of the University of
Colorado. Science data is downloaded once per month. A
partial analysis of data is done onboard, and not all raw
data is downloaded. The data management is located at
the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Johns
Hopkins University campus, in Baltimore, MD. Here the
data is partially processed, and forwarded to NASA-
Ames in California.

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As of this writing, the spacecraft is near end-of-life, in
sleep mode, using none of the remaining onboard fuel.

TESS
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is a follow-on
to the Kepler mission. It uses transit photometry to spot
planets orbiting distant stars. Unfortunately, only about
1% of the star systems are properly aligned to use this
technique, but it still worth the effort. It was launched in
2018. The primary mission objective is to survey the
brightest stars near the Earth. At its launch, about 3,800
exo-planets were known. TESS is expected to add 20,000
more. It will do a all-sky survey on about 85% of the
sphere it occupies.

TESS will pass along to JWST, when that mission is

launched, targets of interest. The TESS mission is lead by
MIT, with funding by Google. It was built by Orbital
Sciences, and launched on a Falcon-9. It is in full
operation at this time. It uses four wide-field CCD
cameras. TESS is operated by NASA, and the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

It's first sighting of an exoplanet was in September, 2018.

Waypoint-1
Waypoint-1 is a commercial space telescope project by a
California company. It is being developed to provide
services for a price. You will be able to buy observing
time, and the data can be downloaded to your phone. Sort
of a, rent-an-orbiting-telescope. Keep an eye on this one.

106
International Lunar Observatory Association
This non-profit association wishes to put a remote-
controlled observatory on the lunar south pole. This
would be in the 2022/23 tine frame. With the vast
expansion of visiting the lunar surface, and lunar
delivery, along with the planned Artemis missions, this
should all fall into place. Commercial and education
access to the observatory is planned.

XpoSat
The X-ray Polarimeter Satellite is a project of ISRO. It is
scheduled for Earth orbit in 2022.
Acidity is an ISRO Project in conjunction with several
Indian Research institutes. This is scheduled to go into a
halo orbit around Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.

Aryabhata
This was India's first satellite, named after a famous
Indian astronomer. .
Athena is a NASA-ESA-JAXA project, the Advanced
Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics. It is scheduled
for a 2034 launch to the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point.

Proposed space telescopes

There are more space-based observatory's in the planning
or development phase. These include TOLIMAN by
NASA, a visible light device. The Chinese Xuntian
Space Telescope is scheduled for 2024, and will observe
in the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet wavelenghts.

107
SpekTR-UN is a soviet telescope operation in the
ultraviolet. Plato is an ESA project in the visible
spectrum. LiteBird is a Japanese effort, in the millimeter
radio spectrum. Lisa, the Laser Interferometer Space
Antenna was a 2037 planned project by ESA.

Astrosat-2 was an ISRO mission to scan the near and far

infrared. After the success of the satellite-borne Indian X-
ray Astronomy Experiment (IXAE), which was launched
in 1996, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
46 approved further development for a full-fledged
astronomy satellite, Astrosat, in 2004. It was launched in
2015. SAFIR (Single Aperture Far Infrared) is a proposed
NASA project. This is by no means a complete list.

Toliman
The Telescope for Orbit Locus Interferometric
Monitoring of our Astronomical Neighborhood would be
used to search the Alpha Centauri System for exoplanets.
It is from JPL in partnership with the University of
Sydney, Australia

Plato
The PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars is an
ESA mission for 2026.

LiteBire
Litebird is the (light) satellite for the studies of B-mode
polarization and Inflation from cosmic background
Radiation Detection. It is a JAXA Project.

108
Wrap-up
There are more interesting ideas than there are money
and time. How do certain missions get selected?
On part is based on need. If there is a gap in out
observational tools, that would weight heavily in the
mission selections. Every 10 years, the Planetary Society
goes through the Decadal survey process. This sets the
goals for the following 10 years, based on available
funds, scientific need, and best guesses. If we find that
first tiny plant sprouting on Mars, priorities change.
We only have to find life on other than our planet once,
and the door is open. We think now we are unique in the
Universe., but the Universe is very large. We still find
strange life forms on Earth, like the extremeo-files deep
under the sea, feeding off volcanic vents. We're not yet
looking hard enough, and can't see far enough to write off
the possibility of alternate life in the Universe. This could
get exciting fast.

109
Glossary of Terms
See also,
[Link]
acronyms
AAS – American Astronomical Society.
ABRIXAS - Broadband Imaging X-ray All-Sky
Survey.
ACS – Advancded camera for Surveys (HST);
attitude control system
AGILE-Astro‐Rivelatore Gamma a Immagini
Leggero (Italy)
AGN – active galactic nucleus with a relativistic jet
ionized matter.
Alexis - Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensor.
Amor asteroids – a class of near Earth asteroids.
AMS - Alpha Magnetic Sprectometer.
Angstrom – measure of length, 0.1 nanometer.
ANS - Astronomical Netherlands Satellite.
AO – adaptive optics
APL – Applied Physics Lab of the Johns Hopkins
University.
Apogee – furthest point from a primary, in an orbit.
Apollo asteroids – class of near-Earth corssing
asteroids
Apsys – extreme point in an orbit, closest or
furthest.
Arc-minute – 1/60 of a degree.
Arc-second – 1/3660 of a degree.
ASCA - Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and
Astrophysics, Japan.

110
ASIC – Application specific integrated circuit.
ASC- LPI - Astro Space Center of PN Lebedev Physics
Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences.
ASIN – Amazon Standard Inventory Number.
ASIS - Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (Chandra).
ASM – all sky monitor
Asteroid – a chunk of rock; a minor planet.
Asteroid belt – a disc in the solar system between Mars
and Jupiter, occupied by chunks of rock in various
sizes.
Astrometry – measurements of positions and movements
of objects in space.
Asteroseismology – study of oscillations in stars.
Aten asteroid – Earth crossing asteroids.
Atira asteroids – orbits are entirely within Earth's orbit
AU – astronomical unit, mean distance from the Earth to
the Sun, 93,000,000 miles.
AXAF - Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (on
Chandra).
BATSE - Burst and Transient Source Experiment, (on
CGRO).
BBXRT – Broad Band X-ray telescope.
Big Bang – current cosmological model for the Universe.
Binary star – two stars in orbit around a common point.
Black hole – a collapsed star, compressed so dense that
not even light can escape; a singularity.
Blazar – active galactic nucleus with a relativistic jet
Blue Moon – intercalary moon, 13 full moons in a year
instead of 12.
Blue Shift – an apparent shift of electromagnetic
radiation toward decreasing wavelength.

111
BRITE – (U.K.) Bright Target Explorer.
CAB – Spanish Astrobiology Center.
Candels - Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic
Legacy Survey
CCD – Charge Coupled Device (like in your cell phone
camera)
C&DH – command and data handling.
CDR – critical design review
Centaur – a minor planet in an unstable orbit, behaving
like an asteroid or comet.
Cepheid – a variable star.
CERN - Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire ,
European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Cheops – ESA, Characterizing ExOPlanets Satellite
Cluster – groups of stars.
CMB – Cosmic microwave background.
CME – Coronal Mass Ejection – burst of plasma and
magnetic fields from a star's corona.
CNES - Centre national d'études spatiales. (France)
CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (France)
CNSA – China National Space Administration.
COBE - Cosmic Background Explorer.
Coma – Comet's tail
Comet – a solar system object consisting of ice, dust, and
gas, in highly eccentric orbit.
Constellation – patterns we see in collections of stars.
COROT (French) Convection, Rotation et Transits
planétaires.
Cosmic ray – high energy radiation, from outside the
solar system.

112
COSMOS – Cosmic evolution survey
COSPAR – Committee on Space Research, International
Council for Science.
COSTAR – (HST) - Corrective Optics Space Telescope
Axial Replacement
CSA – Canadian Space Agency.
CTP – Command and Telemetry Processor
CXE – Cosmic X-ray experiment, HEAO-1.
CXO – Compton X-ray Observatory.
Cyrogenic – at very low temperature.
Dark energy – hypothetical form of energy that explains
why the Universe is expanding.
Dark Matter – existence postulated. Might account for
85% of the matter in the known universe.
DARPA – (U.S.) Defense Advanced Research Project
Agency.
Deuterium – isotope of hydrogen
DLR – (German) Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und
Raumfahrt.
DMC – data management center.
DOE – (U.S.) Department of Energy.
Dwarf planet – planet below a certain size.
Dwarf star – small star, much smaller than our Sun.
Comes in white, red, blue and black variations.
EBL – Extragalactic background light.
Ecliptic – the apparent path that the Sun seems to follow,
the same as the Earth's orbit.
EDU – engineering design unit.
EGRET - Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope
CGRO).
ELDO – European Launcher Development Organization,

113
 merged into ESA.
ELT – extremely large telescope.
EMR – electromagnetic radiation.
Equinox – 2 days per year when there are equal periods
of daylight and darkness.
ESA – European Space Agency.
ESRO – European Space Research Organization, merged
into ESA.
EU – European Union.
EUV – extreme ultraviolet, wavelengths from 10nm to
124nm.
EUVE - Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer.
ev – electron volt, unit of energy.
Exa- 1019
Exeroid – proposed name for a asteroid-like body from
out of outer solar system.
Exoplanet – planet in another solar system.
FGST – Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope.
FOT – flight operations team
FSM – fine steering mirror (JWST)
FUSE - Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer.
Galaxy – a loosely coupled collection of 108 to 1014 stars.
Galex - Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
Gamma ray – EMR from radioactive decay.
Gas giant – a large planet consisting mostly of hydrogen
and helium. Jupiter and Saturn.
GEV – giga (109) electron volts
GLAST - Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope.
GN – NASA's ground network.
GOALS - Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey,
Spitzer, Chandra, CHIPS, HST.

114
Gravitational Wave – a disturbance in the fabric of space-
time.
GRB – gamma ray burst
GRO – Gamma Ray Observatory.
GSFC – Goddard Space Flight Center.
GTC - Gran Telescopio Canarias
HabEx - Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission.
HALCA – (Japan) Highly Advanced Laboratory for
Communications and Astronomy
Hard x-ray – energy above 5-10 kev.
HEASARC - High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive
Research Center.
HEAO – High Energy Astronomy Observatory.
Helioseismology – study of oscillations in our Sun.
Heliosphere – a volume of space dominated by the Sun.
In our case, out beyond Pluto.
HEFT – High Energy Focusing Telescope.
Heliocentric – sun-centered.
Hexte – instrument on RXTE spacecraft – High energy x-
ray timing experiment.
HRMA – High resolution Mirror Assembly (Chandra)
HST – Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble – Space Telescope named after Edwin Hubble.
Hubble Constant – rate of expansion of the universe.
HUDF – Hubble Ultra-Deep Field.
HUT - Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope
HXMT – (China) Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope.
IAU – International Astronomical Union.
IBEX - Interstellar Boundary Explorer.
Ice giant – large planet consisting of ices of various
substances – Uranus and Neptune.

115
ICSU – International Council for Science
IKI - Russian Space Research Institute.
ILO – International Lunar Observatory.
INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy)
Infrared cirrus - cloud-like structures in space that emit
infrared light.
INTA - Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial,
Spain.
Integral - INTErnational Gamma Ray Astrophysics
Laboratory
IPAC – (NASA's) Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center.
IPN – Interplanetary Network – spacecraft with gamma
ray burst detectors.
IRAC - Infrared Array Camera (Spitzer)
IRAS – Infrared Astronomical Satellite.
ISIM – Integrated Science Instrument Model.
IRIS - Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph.
IRS - Infrared Spectrograph (Spitzer).
IRSA - Infrared science archive.
IRT – Infrared Telescope (Shuttle mission).
ISAS – (Japan) Institute of Space and Astronautical
Science.
ISBN – International Standard Book Number.
ISIM – (JWST) Integrated Science Instrument Module
ISM – interstellar medium
ISO – Infrared Space Observatory; International
Standards Organization.
ISRO – Indian Space Research Organization.
ISS – International Space Station.
IXAE – (India) X-ray Astronomy Experiment.

116
IXPE - Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer.
JAXA – Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.
JDEM – Joint Dark Energy Mission (NASA, DOE)
JHU – Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Jovian – pertaining to Jupiter.
JPL – NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, California.
JWST – James Webb Space Telescope.
Kaistsat - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology Satellite.
KAO – (NASA) Kuiper Airborne Observatory.
KARI – Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
Kev – kilo-electron volts, a measure of energy
KBO – Kuiper Belt objects.
KOI – Kepler Objects of Interest.
Kuiper Belt – disc in the solar system from Neptune out
about 50AU.
Lagrange point – null in the gravity field.
LANL – (U. S.) Los Alamos National Laboratory.
LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
(U. Colorado)
LASS - Large-Area Sky Survey, HEAO-1.
LEGRI - Low Energy Gamma-Ray Imager.
Leica – low energy ion composition analyzer
LEO – low Earth orbit.
LETGS - Low Energy Transmission Grating
Spectrometer (Chandra)
LGM – little green men.
Light pollution – interference from background sources.
Light year – the distance light travels in one year. 9.5
x1012 kilometers.
LIRG – luminous infrared galaxy.

117
LISA – Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.
LMSAL - Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics
Laboratory.
LRR - launch readiness review.
LUCI – Lunar Ultraviolet Cosmic Imager (India)
Lunation – synodic month; average period of the moon's
rotation.
LUT – (China) Lunar-based ultraviolet telescope.
LUVOIR - Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor.
LWS – Living with a Star, NASA Program.
Magellanic clouds – two dwarf galaxies in the southern
sky.
Magnetar – neutron star with powerful magnetic field
Magnetotail – a long stream of charged particles, held by
magnetic forces.
MAST - Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (named
for a Maryland State Senator) [Link]
Mbps – 106 bits per second.
Mbytes – mega (106) bytes.
MCC – Mission Control Center
MEV – million electron volts, a measure of energy
Microlensing – light being bent by the gravity of a large
object.
Micron – micro meter
Milky Way – our Sun is in this Galaxy.
MIPS - Multiband Imaging Photometer (Spitzer)
MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MMOC – Multi-Mission Operations Center, GSFC, Bldg
14.
MMS – multi-mission modular spacecraft
Moon – smaller astronomical body in orbit of a planet.

118
MSFC - Marshall Space Flight Center.
MSX – midcourse space experiment
Nanometer – 10-9
NASCOM – NASA communications network.
NASDA – National Space Development Agency (Japan)
NEA – near Earth asteroid.
NEC – near Earth comet.
NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Nebula – interstellar cloud of dust and gasses.
NeN – (NASA) near Earth network
NEO – near Earth object.
Neutron star – collapsed core of a large star. Very dense.
New Horizons – imaging mission to Pluto and beyond.
NGC – New General Catalog (of Nebulae and Clusters of
Stars).
NGST – Next Generation Space Telescope – renamed
after James Webb.
NIAC - NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.
NICER – Neutron star interior composition explorer.
NICMOS – (HST) Near Infrared Camera and Multi-
Object Spectrometer.
NM – nano-meter
Nova – transient astronomical event involving a bright
new star that fades over time.
NRC – (Canada) National Research Council.
NRL – Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C.
NSSDC -National Space Science Data Center.
NSF – (U.S.) National Science Foundation.
NSSC – NASA Standard Spacecraft Computer, an 18-bit
flight computer.
NuSTAR - Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

119
OAO – Orbiting Astronomical Observatory.
Orbit – the path of one body around another, that are
linked by gravity.
ORU – orbital replacement unit.
OSSE - Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment
(CGRO).
OTE – optical telescope element (JWST)
PAMELA - Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration
and Light- nuclei Astrophysics.
Parsec – parallel second of arc, unit of length, about 3.26
light years.
PCA – proportional counter array.
PDR – preliminary design review.
Perigee – nearest point to the primary, in an orbit.
pet – proton-electron telescope
Peta – 1016
PHA – potentially hazardous asteroids
PHO – potentially hazardous objects
Photon – quantum particle of the electromagnetic field ,
zero mass, moves at speed of light.
Planet – a body orbiting a star.
Planetary disk – debris disks around a star.
Pleiades – an open star clusterPHA
Pulsar – highly magnetized rotating neutron star of white
dwarf.
Quark – an elementary particle.
Quasar – quasi-stellar object, galactic nucleus.
RAE - Radio astronomy explorer.
RC – High resolution camera (Chandra).
Red Shift – an apparent shift of electromagnetic radiation
toward an increasing wavelength due to the

120
 doppler effect.
Ring system – a disk of solid material around a planet.
Rhessi - Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic
Imager.
Rockoon – a rocket taken to altitude by a balloon and
then launched.
Rogue planet – planet not associated with a star.
ROSAT (short for Röntgensatellit), X-ray in German.
RSA - Roentgen stereophotogrammetric analysis.
RTG – radioisotope thermoelectric generator.
RXTE – Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer.
Sampex - Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle
Explorer.
SAO - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
SAS - Small Astronomy Satellite. (NASA)
Scintillation – variations in apparent brightness.
SCM – (HST) Soft capture mechanism.
SCRS – Soft capture and rendezvous system
SD – scattered disk, a distant ring of smaller solar system
objects, beyond Neptune
SDO – scattered disk object; Solar dynamics observatory
SERC – Science and Engineering Research Council
(U.K.)
SES (Nasa-GSFC) space environment simulator.
SETI – search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Seyfert galaxy – galaxy with quasar-like nuclei, about
10% of all known galaxies.
SGR – soft gamma ray repeater; emits large bursts of
gamma-rays and X-rays at irregular intervals.
SIM – Science Instrument Module; space interferometry
mission

121
SIRTF - Space Infrared Telescope Facility, renamed
Spitzer.
SMEX – Small Explorer program (NASA)
SMM – Solar Maximum Mission.
SN – (NASA) space network.
SNSA - Swedish National Space Agency.
SNSB – Swedish National Space Board.
SOFIA – NASA Stratosphere Observatory for Infrared
Astronomy.
Soft x-ray – energies below 5 kev
Solar flare – a sudden rapid emission of electrons, ions,
and atoms from a star.
Solar System – A star and its associated planets and such.
Solar wind – stream of charged particles emitted from a
star's upper atmosphere.
Solo – (ESA) solar orbiter
Solstice – day of the shortest or longest period of
daylight.
SRC - Science Research Council (UK)
SRON – Netherlands Institute for Space Research.
SSC – Swedish Space Corporation.
SSR – solid state recorder.
STOL – system test oriented (computer) language.
STSCI - Space Telescope Science Data Archive, JHU
campus, Baltimore, mD
STSDA – Space Telescope Science Data Analysis .
Strangelet – a hypothetical particle, made of up, down,
and strange quarks.
STES – Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
STS – Space Transportation System (Shuttle).
StScI – Space Telescope Science Institute (JHU)

122
Supernova – a massive explosion of a star, at its end of
life.
SWG – Science Working Group.
SWOOPS - Solar Wind Observations Over the Poles of
the Sun.
TBD – to be determined.
TDRS – Tracking and Data Relay Satellite.
TDRSS – Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System.
TESS - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.
Tidal lock – where the same side of a object always faces
the primary it is orbiting.
TLP -transient lunar phenomena.
TNO – Trans-Neptunian objects.
TO – Target of Opportunity
Trojan – minor planet that shares an orbit with one of the
larger planets.
TRW - Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, Aerospace
Company.
UK – United Kingdom, England.
USAF – United States Air Force.
USRA – Universities Space Research Association.
UV – ultraviolet, 19 nm to 400 nm wavelength.
WFIrST - Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.
VIM – Voyager Interstellar Mission.
Virtual telescope - several robotic telescopes, remotely
available in real-time over the Internet.
VLBI – Very long baseline interferometry.
Wfirst - Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope
White dwarf – very dense remnant of a stellar core.
WIMPS - weakly interacting massive particles
WISE - Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer.

123
WMAP - Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
Wmops - WISE Moving Object Processing Software.
WUPPE - Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter
Experiment.
XMM - X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission.
X-ray - 0.1 to 10 nanometer wavelength.
X-ray binary (star) – binary star, emitting x-rays.
XRCF – X-ray & cyrogenic facility (MSFC)
YSO – young stellar objects.
Zombie-sat – dead satellite, in orbit.

124
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[Link]
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ls/quick_facts.php

 [Link]

 Webb site: [Link]

 SAS-B -
[Link]
do?id=1972-091A

 [Link]
[Link]

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[Link]

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ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS FROM THE

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Engineering and Physical Sciences; Board on
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and Astrophysics

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131
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