Downloaded from NASA Spacelink!
Originally planned as a Spacelab facility, the Space
Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) has been redesigned to
be the fourth Great Observatory. It will provide
unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution in the
infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. To achieve
this resolution, its complement of four science instruments
will be cryogenically cooled. This long-lived, meter-class,
infrared observatory will study the very cold regions of
space. It will be launched by the space shuttle and
serviced by the shuttle and Space Station Freedom.
Regions and objects the facility will study are:
(1) locations where the cosmic gas and dust condense into
stars;
(2) cool objects in the solar system - planetary systems,
asteroids, and comets; and
(3) infrared-emitting extragalactic objects.
SIRTF will be 1,000 times more sensitive than the
Infrared Astronomical Satellite. One of its major
applications will be to obtain detailed infrared
spectrometry of the faint infrared sources that the Infrared
Astronomical Satellite discovered but could not observe in
detail.
Definition studies of SIRTF, currently in process, are
directed toward receiving administrative approval for
development in the early 1990s.