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Published January 2022 | Published + Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

On-orbit performance of the Spitzer Space Telescope: science meets engineering

Abstract

The Spitzer Space Telescope operated for over 16 years in an Earth-trailing solar orbit, returning not only a wealth of scientific data but also, as a by-product, spacecraft and instrument engineering data that will be of interest to future mission planners. These data will be particularly useful because Spitzer operated in an environment essentially identical to that at the L2 LaGrange point, where many future astrophysics missions will operate. In particular, the radiative cooling demonstrated by Spitzer has been adopted by other infrared space missions, from JWST to SPHEREx. We aim to facilitate the utility of the Spitzer engineering data by collecting the more unique and potentially useful portions into a single, readily accessible publication. We avoid discussion of less unique systems, such as the telecom, flight software, and electronics systems, and do not address the innovations in mission and science operations that the Spitzer team initiated. These and other items of potential interest are addressed in references supplied in an appendix to this paper.

Additional Information

© The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI. Received: 13 July 2021; Accepted: 22 December 2021; Published: 21 January 2022. We thank JATIS editor Mark Clampin for suggesting that we include a discussion of integration and test in the paper. We thank Sean Carey of the Spitzer Science Center for providing Fig. 12. We also thank Tom Soifer of the Spitzer Science Center for his helpful comments on the manuscript and Wayne Evenson of Lockheed Martin, Denver, for early versions of Figs. 3–5. Our colleagues Paul Chodas, Bob Gehrz, Erick Young, and Dave Bayard cheerfully provided answers to numerous questions about Spitzer. Insightful comments of three referees led to significant improvements in this paper. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023