Dec 14 2009
From The Space Library
NASA launched its Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) aboard a Delta-2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:09 a.m. (EST). Approximately 52 minutes into the flight, the rocket placed the 1,485-pound (673-kilogram) WISE craft into polar orbit 326 miles (525 kilometers) above Earth. From that point, the craft would carry out its mission to map all objects in the sky in infrared light—near-Earth asteroids, stars, planet-forming discs, and distant galaxies. Approximately 3 minutes after separating from the rocket, WISE reoriented itself toward the Sun, enabling it to use its solar panels to generate its own power. Approximately 17 minutes later, valves opened on the craft’s cryostat, a chamber of super-cold hydrogen ice designed to maintain WISE at colder temperatures than the objects the craft would observe. WISE’s primary mission would expire once the frozen hydrogen was depleted, approximately 10 months after launch. Scientists expected the resulting WISE atlas to contain hundreds of millions of objects, which would provide astronomers and space mission designers with a long-lasting infrared roadmap.
NASA, “NASA’s WISE Eye on the Universe Begins All-Sky Survey Mission,” news release 09-286, 14 December 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/dec/HQ_09-286_WISE_launch.html (accessed 16 December 2011); John Johnson Jr., “NASA Launches New Mapping Spacecraft,” Los Angeles Times, 15 December 2009.
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