CaltechAUTHORS
Published October 1, 1996 | Version public
Journal Article Metadata-only

The IRTS (Infrared Telescope in Space) Mission

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
  • 2. ROR icon Ames Research Center
  • 3. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 4. ROR icon National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
  • 5. ROR icon Nagoya University
  • 6. ROR icon University of Tsukuba
  • 7. ROR icon Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute
  • 8. ROR icon University of Tokyo
  • 9. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center

Abstract

The Japanese satellite-borne infrared telescope, the Infrared Telescope in Space (IRTS), has completed a successful survey of a portion of the infrared sky. The IRTS consists of a 15 cm telescope cooled with superfluid liquid helium, and is installed on board the Space Flyer Unit (SFU) spacecraft. The SFU was launched on 1995 March 18 UT. The sky survey by the IRTS started on March 29 UT, and was completed on April 25 UT after exhausting its liquid helium. The cryogenic system operated as designed, and maintained the telescope and the focal-plane instruments at a stable temperature of 1.9 K for 38 days. The four focal-plane instruments, which together covered almost the entire infrared wavelength range, observed a sky area of about 2700 deg2 and returned a wealth of new data on a variety of objects, including the zodiacal light, interstellar gas and dust, near-infrared cosmic background light and point sources.

Additional Information

© 1996 Astronomical Society of Japan. (Received 1996 July 12; accepted 1996 September 2) The authors would like to thank the SFU project team for their support in all aspects, including the integration of the instruments, the flight operation, and the preparation of data on the orbit and attitude of the spacecraft. The authors are grateful to Y. Doi, K. Mochizuki, and T. Tohya, who assisted us in the flight operation. The authors also thank IPAC for their help in the pointing reconstruction of the IRTS. T. Roellig and L. Yuen would like to acknowledge the support of NASA's grants program.

Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
76377
DOI
10.1093/pasj/48.5.L41
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20170408-200419916

Related works

Describes
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996PASJ...48L..41M (URL)

Funding

NASA

Dates

Created
2018-03-30
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-15
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)