On-orbit performance of the Spitzer Space Telescope: science meets engineering

Abstract

The Spitzer Space Telescope operated for over 16 years in an Earth-trailing solar orbit, returning not only a wealth of scientific data but also, as a by-product, spacecraft and instrument engineering data that will be of interest to future mission planners. These data will be particularly useful because Spitzer operated in an environment essentially identical to that at the L2 LaGrange point, where many future astrophysics missions will operate. In particular, the radiative cooling demonstrated by Spitzer has been adopted by other infrared space missions, from JWST to SPHEREx. We aim to facilitate the utility of the Spitzer engineering data by collecting the more unique and potentially useful portions into a single, readily accessible publication. We avoid discussion of less unique systems, such as the telecom, flight software, and electronics systems, and do not address the innovations in mission and science operations that the Spitzer team initiated. These and other items of potential interest are addressed in references supplied in an appendix to this paper.

JWST PEARLS. Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science: Project Overview and First Results

“…JWST was designed in the 1990s and 2000s to observe very faint objects at near-and mid-infrared wavelengths from the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point (e.g., Rieke et al 2005;Gardner et al 2006;Windhorst et al 2008;Beichman et al 2012). With its 6.5 m aperture and state-of-the-art scientific instruments, 52 JWST builds on the scientific results from two of NASA's previous flagship missions: the Hubble Space Telescope (HST; for a review of 27 yr of HST imaging data, see, e.g., Windhorst et al 2022) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (e.g., Werner et al 2004Werner et al , 2022Soifer et al 2008). The NASA/ESA/CSA JWST was successfully launched on 2021 December 25 on an Ariane V launch vehicle into a direct-insertion trajectory to L2.…”