NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Update on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a NASA MIDEX mission, will survey the entire sky in four bands from 3.3 to 23 microns with a sensitivity 1000 times greater than the IRAS survey. The WISE survey will extend the Two Micron All Sky Survey into the thermal infrared and will provide an important catalog for the James Webb Space Telescope. Using 1024(sup 2) HgCdTe and Si:As arrays at 3.3, 4.7, 12 and 23 microns, WISE will find the most luminous galaxies in the universe, the closest stars to the Sun, and it will detect most of the main belt asteroids larger than 3 km. The single WISE instrument consists of a 40 cm diamond-turned aluminum afocal telescope, a two-stage solid hydrogen cryostat, a scan mirror mechanism, and reimaging optics giving 5 resolution (full-width-half-maximum). The use of dichroics and beamsplitters allows four color images of a 47' x47' field of view to be taken every 8.8 seconds, synchronized with the orbital motion to provide total sky coverage with overlap between revolutions. WISE will be placed into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit on a Delta 7320-10 launch vehicle. The WISE survey approach is simple and efficient. The three-axis-stabilized spacecraft rotates at a constant rate while the scan mirror freezes the telescope line of sight during each exposure. WISE has completed its mission Preliminary Design Review and its NASA Confirmation Review, and the project is awaiting confirmation from NASA to proceed to the Critical Design phase. Much of the payload hardware is now complete, and assembly of the payload will occur over the next year. WISE is scheduled to launch in late 2009; the project web site can be found at www.wise.ssl.berkeley.edu.
Document ID
20070024466
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Mainzer, Amanda K.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Eisenhardt, Peter
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Wright, Edward L.
(California Univ. Los Angeles, CA, United States)
Liu, Feng-Chuan
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Irace, William
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Heinrichsen, Ingolf
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Cutri, Roc
(Infrared Processing and Analysis Center Pasadena, CA, United States)
Duval, Valerie
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
May 27, 2006
Subject Category
Astronomy
Meeting Information
Meeting: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation
Location: Orland, FL
Country: United States
Start Date: May 24, 2006
End Date: May 30, 2006
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
aster
galaxies
brown dwarfs
ultraluminous galaxies
asteroids

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available