The Spitzer space telescope mission

The Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA's Great Observatory for infrared astronomy, was launched 2003 August 25 and is returning excellent scientific data from its Earth-trailing solar orbit. Spitzer combines the intrinsic sensitivity achievable with a cryogenic telescope in space with the great imaging and spectroscopic power of modern detector arrays to provide the user community with huge gains in capability for exploration of the cosmos in the infrared. The observatory systems are largely performing as expected, and the projected cryogenic lifetime is about five years. Spitzer is thus both a scientific and a technical precursor to the infrared astronomy missions of the future. This very brief paper refers interested readers to several sets of recent publications which describe both the scientific and the technical features of Spitzer in detail. Note that, until 2003 December, Spitzer was known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of COSPAR.