4+-+7

for spitzer for spitzersame
 * Category 7 – Space Telescopes **
 * Hubble || NASA Current ||
 * Explorer 1 || JPL Past ||
 * XMM – Newton || NASA Current ||
 * Spitzer Space Telescope || JPL Current ||
 * Chandra || NASA Current ||
 * Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) || NASA Current ||
 * INTEGRAL || NASA Current ||

hubble

If you could see as well as the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope, you would be able to read the fine print on a newspaper one mile away! You may have seen some of the awesome pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope. These pictures were actually taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) that flies aboard the Hubble. In this 1993 picture, NASA Space Shuttle astronauts install the WFPC2 camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. Besides taking pictures, the camera acts like eyeglasses to correct a flaw in the telescope's mirror. This camera is very sensitive to the faintest light, and it can focus on objects very far away. Instead of trying to read newspapers, WFPC2 focuses on the faintest and most far away objects in the universe. They include other galaxies, cloudy bubbles of gas from dying stars, and gassy regions that are the nurseries where stars are born.

XMM- newton

chandraintegral

> > spitzer > XMM-Newton carries three very advanced X-ray telescopes. They each contain 58 high-precision concentric mirrors, delicately nested to offer the largest collecting area possible to catch the elusive X-rays. These Mirror Modules allow XMM-Newton to detect millions of sources, far more than any previous X-ray mission. > What excites astronomers most is that the satellite's highly eccentric orbit, travelling out to nearly one third of the distance to the Moon, enables them to make very long and uninterrupted observations. Peering into deep space, XMM-Newton's science payload will considerably increase our knowledge of very hot objects created when the Universe was very young. > XMM-Newton is ESA's second 'Cornerstone' mission. Development and construction of the spacecraft has overcome major technological hurdles. Its wafer-thin X-ray mirrors are a miracle of engineering and the smoothest ever built. With its five X-ray imaging cameras and > spectrographs, and its optical monitoring telescope, the new space observatory will for the next ten years be at the cutting edge of astronomy.
 * The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the worlds most powerful X-ray telescope. It has eight-times more resolution can detect sources more than 20-times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.
 * The Chandra X-ray Observatory will observes clouds of gas so dense and big that it takes light more than five-million years to go from one side to the other.
 * Chandra X-ray Observatory can study particles up to the last millisecond before they are sucked inside a black hole

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) is a satellite that observes the high-energy worlds of black holes, and neutron stars. RXTE was launched into a low-Earth orbit on December 30, 1995, and is still going strong. It receives X-rays put out by neutron stars which spin so fast and have such a high gravitational pull that RXTE has to time it just right to capture the images. The primary science instrument on Explorer 1 was a cosmic ray detector designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit**Launch and Orbit** > January 31, 1958 - Launch > May 23, 1958 - Signal ended when batteries ran out > March 31, 1970 - Burned up on re-entry over Pacific Ocean > Orbited Earth once every 114.8 minutes after launch, or 12.54 orbits per day > Completed 58,000 orbits times before returning to Earth in March 1970 > Orbit path took it as close as 354 kilometers (220 miles) to Earth and as far as 2,515 kilometers (1,563 miles) from EarthRIGHT-CLICK on these links to "Open in a new window" > || **MISSION END:** || Nominal 2 years - extended to 31 December 2012 || > || **LAUNCH VEHICLE:** || Proton || > || **LAUNCH MASS:** || 4000 kg || > || **MISSION PHASE:** || Operational || || > |||||||| **ORBIT:** > Elliptical 72 hour || > |||||||| **ACHIEVEMENTS:** >> on record (GRB 031203) intergal stuff
 * || **LAUNCH DATE:** || 17-Oct-2002 04:41 UT ||
 * Spectral measurements of gamma-ray sources
 * Detection of gamma-ray bursts, including the closest and faintest
 * Mapping the galactic plane in gamma-rays
 * Resolving diffuse gamma-ray emission from galactic centre
 * Providing supporting evidence for torii in AGN
 * Finding new class of highly absorbed objects

After some delays, Hubble's launch was scheduled for October 1986. But on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just over a minute into its flight. Shuttle flights ceased for two years. The finished telescope parts were moved into storage. Hubble workers continued to tweak the telescope during the delay, improving the solar batteries and upgrading other systems. On April 24, 1990, Hubble finally launched into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. The telescope carried five instruments: The Wide Field/Planetary Camera, the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, the Faint Object Camera, the Faint Object Spectrograph, and the High Speed Photometer. > Hubble works on the same principle as the first reflecting telescope built in the 1600s by Isaac Newton. Light enters the telescope and strikes a concave primary mirror, which acts like a lens to focus the light. The bigger the mirror, the better the image. > > In Hubble, light from the primary mirror is reflected to a smaller secondary mirror in front of the primary mirror, then back through a hole in the primary to instruments clustered behind the focal plane (where the image is in focus). Hubble's discoveries have transformed the way scientists look at the universe. Its ability to show the universe in unprecedented detail has turned astronomical conjectures into concrete certainties. It has winnowed down the collection of theories about the universe even as it sparked new ones, clarifying the path for future astronomers. Among its many discoveries, Hubble has revealed the age of the universe to be about 13 to 14 billion years, much more accurate than the old range of anywhere from 10 to 20 billion years. Hubble played a key role in the discovery of dark energy, a mysterious force that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Hubble has shown scientists galaxies in all stages of evolution, including toddler galaxies that were around when the universe was still young, helping them understand how galaxies form. It found protoplanetary disks, clumps of gas and dust around young stars that likely function as birthing grounds for new planets. It discovered that gamma-ray bursts — strange, incredibly powerful explosions of energy — occur in far-distant galaxies when massive stars collapse. And these are only a handful of its many contributions to astronomy. > JPL PAST Missions http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past_missions.cfm > JPL CURRENT Missions http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/index.cfm > NASA CURRENT Missions http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html