Observing with SIRTF: Opportunities for the Scientific Community

Abstract

The Space InfraRed Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is the fourth and finalelement in NASA's family of orbiting ‘Great Observatories’. SIRTFconsists of a 0.85-meter diameter telescope and three cryogenically-cooledscience instruments capable of observing from the near- to the far-infrared,between 3 and 180 μm. Incorporating the latest in large-format infrareddetector arrays, SIRTF offers orders-of-magnitude improvements in capabilityover existing facilities. Launch is scheduled for December 2001, with ananticipated lifetime of up to 5 years. SIRTF will observe targets rangingfrom small, icy bodies in the outer Solar System to the most luminousknown objects in the distant reaches of the Universe. SIRTF representsan important scientific and technical bridge to NASA's new Origins program,and is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CaliforniaInstitute of Technology.