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Lockheed Martin Space Systems delivers NASA's Space Infrared
Telescope Facility to Kennedy Space Center for April launch
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SUNNYVALE, CALIF, March 7, 2003 -- NASA's Space Infrared Telescope 
Facility (SIRTF) has completed integration, testing and prelaunch 
checkout at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Sunnyvale, California, 
and has been delivered to the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida for 
an April 2003 launch. SIRTF's Cryogenic Telescope Assembly, which 
includes the scientific instruments, was built by Ball Aerospace in 
Boulder, Colo., and was delivered to Space Systems in Sunnyvale in 
February 2002 and integrated with the Lockheed Martin-built 
spacecraft.

"We are very pleased to have completed integration and testing of 
NASA's latest space observatory," said John Straetker, Lockheed Martin 
SIRTF program manager. "Environmental and other comprehensive tests 
done here in Sunnyvale have confirmed that SIRTF is a healthy 
Observatory, ready for integration with the launch vehicle. We look 
forward with anticipation to the upcoming launch."

SIRTF is a cryogenically-cooled space observatory that will conduct 
infrared (IR) astronomy during a two and one-half-to-five year mission 
beginning in 2003. SIRTF completes NASA's family of Great 
Observatories that also includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the 
Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The 
SIRTF program, a cornerstone of NASA's Origins Program, is managed by 
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. for NASA's Office of 
Space Science in Washington DC.

The spaceborne SIRTF observatory comprises a 0.85-meter diameter 
telescope and three scientific instruments capable of performing 
imaging and spectroscopy in the 3-180 micron wavelength regime. 
Incorporating the latest in large-format infrared detector array 
technology, SIRTF will provide more than a 100-fold increased in 
scientific capability over previous IR missions. Cornell University, 
University of Arizona, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for 
Astrophysics have provided the instruments for SIRTF.

An important feature of the SIRTF mission is the adoption of a solar 
orbit.  To reach this orbit, the spacecraft will be launched on a 
Delta 7920 launch vehicle with slightly greater than terrestrial 
escape velocity. The resulting orbit will have SIRTF trailing the 
Earth in its orbit around the Sun. This orbit makes better use of 
launch capability than do many possible alternate orbits that would 
keep SIRTF in orbit around the Earth. It permits excellent, 
uninterrupted viewing of a large portion of the sky without the need 
for Earth-avoidance maneuvers. In addition, the absence of heat input 
from the Earth provides a stable thermal environment and allows the 
exterior of the telescope to reach a low temperature via radiative 
cooling.

A one meter-diameter transmitting antenna fixed to the bottom of the
spacecraft will be used twice each day to transmit 12 hours of stored
science data to stations of NASA's Deep Space Network. In this manner, 
an adequate average data rate of 85 kbps-- corresponding to one image 
from SIRTF's largest array every 10 seconds -- can be maintained over 
the lifetime of the mission.

SIRTF's scientific potential is rooted in four basic physical 
principles that define the importance of infrared investigations for 
studying astrophysical problems:

Infrared observations reveal cool states of matter: Solid bodies in 
space -- ranging in size from sub-micron-sized interstellar dust 
grains to giant planets -- have temperatures spanning the range from 
3K to 1500K (above which nearly all solids evaporate). Most of the 
energy radiated by objects in this temperature range lies in the 
infrared part of the spectrum.  Infrared observations are therefore of 
particular importance in studying low-temperature environments such as 
dusty interstellar clouds where stars are forming and the icy surfaces 
of planetary satellites and asteroids.

Infrared observations explore the hidden Universe: Cosmic dust 
particles effectively obscure parts of the visible Universe and block 
our view of many critical astronomical environments. This dust becomes 
transparent in the infrared, where observers can probe optically 
invisible regions such as the center of our Galaxy (and other 
galaxies) and dense clouds where stars and planets may be forming. For 
many objects -- including dust-embedded stars, active galactic nuclei, 
and even entire galaxies -- the visible radiation absorbed by the dust 
and re-radiated in the infrared accounts for virtually the entire 
luminosity.

Infrared observations access unique spectral features: Emission and
absorption bands of virtually all molecules and solids lie in the 
infrared, where they can be used to probe conditions in cool celestial 
environments.  Many atoms and ions have spectral features in the 
infrared that can be used for diagnostic studies of stellar 
atmospheres and interstellar gas, exploring regions that are too cool 
or too dust-enshrouded to be reached with optical observations.

Infrared observations reach back to the early life of the cosmos: The 
cosmic redshift which results from the general expansion of the 
Universe inexorably shifts energy to longer wavelengths in an amount 
proportional to an object's distance. Because of the finite speed of 
light, objects at high redshift are observed as they were when the 
Universe and those objects were much younger.  As a result of the 
expansion of the Universe, most of the optical and ultraviolet 
radiation emitted from stars, galaxies, and quasars since the 
beginning of time now lies in the infrared. How and when the first 
objects in the Universe formed will be learned in large part from 
infrared observations.

Apart from a few windows at short wavelengths, all of the infrared 
radiation emitted by the above objects is absorbed by Earth's 
atmosphere. Worse, the infrared emission of the atmosphere itself 
blinds astronomers peering through those windows. Hence the need for a 
cooled space-based infrared observatory with high sensitivity -- 
SIRTF.

NASA's Origins Program follows the chain of events that began with the 
birth of the Universe at the Big Bang. It seeks to understand the 
entire process of cosmic evolution from the formation of chemical 
elements, galaxies, stars and planets, through the mixing of chemicals 
and energy that cradles life on Earth, to the earliest 
self-replicating organisms and the profusion of life.  In short, 
Origins hopes to answer the fundamental questions: Where did we come 
from? Are we alone?

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company is one of the major operating 
units of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Space Systems designs, develops, 
tests, manufactures, and operates a variety of advanced technology 
systems for military, civil and commercial customers. Chief products 
include a full-range of space launch systems, including heavy-lift 
capability, ground systems, remote sensing and communications 
satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space 
observatories and interplanetary spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles 
and missile defense systems.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Low- and high-resolution JPEG images of the SIRTF
spacecraft in a cleanroom at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in 
Sunnyvale are available.

For more information about Lockheed Martin Space Systems, see our 
website.

March 2003
03-09

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