Jan 25 1983
From The Space Library
NASA launched the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) at 6:17 p.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta into polar orbit with 883.6-kilometer apogee, 856.6-kilometer perigee, 100.1 inclination, and 102.4-minute period. A joint endeavor of NASA, Netherlands Aerospace Agency, and U.K. Science and Engineering Research Council, IRAS, was a 2,360-pound spacecraft carrying a 22-inch Cassegrain telescope cryogenically cooled by a helium tank to measure infrared radiation in four bands between 8 and 119 microns. At low temperature the detectors would have the sensitivity needed for an all-sky survey of the "heat signatures of stars.
The $80 million mission might find up to a million infrared sources not previously detected, filling "a significant gap in the electromagnetic spectrum between visible light and radio waves...about which we have no or very little information," according to Dr. Dale Compton, telescope manager at Ames Research Center (ARC). IRAS was designed to cover about 95% of the sky over the next sixth months and produce the first comprehensive catalog of infrared objects.
The United States built the telescope and the rocket and was managing operations through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The Netherlands built the spacecraft and three other scientific instruments. The United Kingdom would handle the tracking and collect the data. (NASA MOR E-885-83-01 [prelaunch] Jan 3/83; NASA wkly SSR, Jan 27/83; Spacewarn SPX-352; NY Times, Jan 27/83, A-7)
Discovery of another hydrogen leak during a second test-firing of Shuttle Challenger's main engines would delay the launch recently postponed to late February for at least several more weeks, said Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, Shuttle program head, at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The leak meant delaying Challenger's five-day mission for a month or more if one or more of the engines had to be removed from the Shuttle, test-fired, and replaced. The new leak was "on the same order of magnitude" as the first; as the source was never located, the leaks might be from the same or different areas. (W Post, Jan 26/83, A-5)
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