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Space infrared telescope carrying Cornell-designed
 infrared spectrograph arrives at Cape Canaveral
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FOR RELEASE: March 13, 2003

Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.
         Cornell University News Service
Office:  607-255-3290
E-mail:  bpf2{at}cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- All ready to begin its search for the earliest, 
coldest and dirtiest parts of the cosmos, the Space Infrared Telescope 
Facility (SIRTF) arrived March 6 at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape 
Canaveral, Fla.  It is scheduled for launch Tuesday, April 15, at 
4:34:07 a.m. aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket.

One of the three instruments carried by the observatory is an infrared 
spectrograph (IRS) designed by Cornell University researchers and 
built by Ball Aerospace.

Final tests on the IRS to verify its safe passage to Florida from 
Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, Calif., will be carried out by the 
principal investigator on the spectrograph, James R. Houck, the J.A. 
Wallace Professor of Astronomy at Cornell.

The orbiting telescope, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 
Pasadena, Calif., is the last mission of NASA's Great Observatories 
program, which includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray 
Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.  The IRS will peer 
into deep regions of the universe not visible optically.  The IRS, it 
is hoped, will provide clues to the youngest parts of the heavens and 
show astronomers when star and galaxy formation began.  Houck says the 
IRS can penetrate obscuring dust in the dirtiest parts of the cosmos 
and observe ultrafrigid, newly forming stars in the coldest regions of 
the universe. "For every question we answer, we dredge up three more," 
says Houck.  "We're still in the process of finding out just how 
ignorant we are."

The observatory will trail the Earth in its orbit around the sun, with 
the instruments functioning in an environment where temperatures are 
slightly above absolute zero (-273 degrees Centigrade or -460 degrees 
Fahrenheit).  With no moving parts, the IRS consists of two physically 
separated sections.  The IRS cold assemblies are located within the 
SIRTF multiple-instrument chamber, and the warm electronics are in the 
SIRTF spacecraft bus.  The spectrometer spreads light in wavelengths 
to create spectra, within which astronomers can study the atomic and 
molecular fingerprints found deep in the universe.

The idea of peering deep into the cold regions of the cosmos with an 
infrared spectrograph goes back more than three decades. Astronomers 
had found intense infrared radiation in the universe in 1968.  Three 
years later a team of Cornell astronomers, led by Martin Harwit, now a 
Cornell emeritus professor of astronomy, and by Houck, then an 
assistant professor, sent rocket-borne instruments, cooled with liquid 
helium, about 118 miles above Earth.  They learned that the distant, 
cosmic radiation was 20 times more intense than previously thought.

In 1978 Houck conducted infrared experiments from airplanes.  It was 
then that he and his colleagues persuaded NASA there was an 
opportunity for placing a great telescope into space to study the 
infrared band of the spectrum, and perhaps uncover previously unseen 
parts of the universe.  NASA agreed and sent out a request for 
proposals in 1983.  In April 1984, Houck received the space agency 
award.  That award, after several design and mission changes, has 
become the IRS.

According to NASA, SIRTF is scheduled to arrive at Pad 17-B on April 2 
and will spend approximately two weeks atop the Delta rocket.  The 
payload fairing will be placed around the telescope April 5.  Then the 
observatory's dewar, used to cool the detectors and optical elements, 
will be cryogenically topped off with super-cold liquid helium to its 
maximum capacity of 360 liters (90 gallons), chilled to near absolute 
zero.  This will increase the detectors' sensitivity to infrared 
light.  Filling the spacecraft dewar will take approximately six days. 
Finally, two days before launch, according to NASA, the Delta launch 
vehicle's second stage will be fueled.

Houck says he cannot wait to see what surprises lurk in the deep 
reaches of the cosmos. "The real payoff will be the discoveries we 
didn't anticipate.  They'll be startling, and as astronomers, we'll 
ask ourselves, 'why didn't we think of that?'" he says.

Related World Wide Web sites:  The following site provides additional 
information on this news release.  It is not part of the Cornell 
University community, and Cornell has no control over its content or 
availability.

	o SIRTF: http://sirtf.caltech.edu/index.html>

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