WISE, a mission that will find ALL the neighbours |
WISE, a mission that will find ALL the neighbours |
Aug 27 2009, 08:31 PM
Post
#1
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
I'm used to reading excellent articles by Emily, but this one I found to be of truly extraordinary interest:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002070/ |
|
|
Dec 14 2009, 07:54 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 60 Joined: 3-January 09 Member No.: 4520 |
Here's a general "mission/science expectations" summary post, since I was curious, and I had to dig around a bit to get it:
Emily says, "There's a one-month commissioning phase before science starts. ... The main imaging instrument gets turned on in five days. Sixteen days after launch, the cryostat cover will be blown off. Then there are two weeks of checkouts of instruments and systems, followed by a nine-month nominal mission. That nine months will allow them to perform 1.5 complete sky surveys." There's one sky survey in six months because it's in a sun-synchronous orbit and thus WISE hits both sides of the sky in its orbit (obviously), and it scans the skies by waiting for Earth to orbit the Sun. Space.com adds that "WISE will capture about 5,700 pictures a day of the infrared sky. The mission management team says it will release the first science data within one month of launch." And one of the project scientists said in the press conference that they'll be announcing interesting objects as they spot them. But the bulk of the data will be released in two big chunks at the very end of the mission - first release, April 2011, second, March 2012, according to this. In case it's not obvious: I think this mission is very exciting. Congrats to NASA on a successful launch! |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 7th June 2024 - 10:33 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |