Herschel: Largest Space Telescope in the Universe
The two satellites, named Herschel and Planck, built by Thales Alenia Space of Italy for the European Space Agency (ESA), will be launched in April from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, South America, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.
The two spacecraft will separate from the Ariane rocket about two and a half hours after launch and reach their orbital position in less than six months. The observatories will positioned 932,100 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth at a location in space named the second Lagrangian Point, or L2. This is far enough away to avoid the undesirable emission of heat from the Earth, the Moon and the Sun which would cause too much interference in the measurements.
ESA chose Thales Alenia Space to built the two satellites in 2001 and made the $468 million contract the largest ever for European space science.
The Herschel satellite will carry an infrared telescope, and will be the first spacecraft to observe the universe in the submillimetric part of the spectrum. It has a primary mirror 11.4 feet (3.5 meters) in diameter (versus only 7.8 feet (2.4 meters) on the Hubble Space Telescope), making it the largest telescope in orbit until the arrival of the new U.S. James Webb Space Telescope in 2013.
Herschel is a successor to the Infrared Space Observatory launched in 1995. The telescope will be capable of observing the cold, dust-loaded regions of the universe that are inaccessible to other telescopes. Its primary mission is to study the genesis of galaxies and changes to stars being formed, as well as dust and gas clouds that could give birth to stars, protoplanetary disks and complex organic molecules in comet comas.
The observatory is designed to perform routine science operations for a minimum of three years. The mission will end when the helium used to cool the scientific instruments is depleted.
Planck will look back at the dawn of time, close to the Big Bang, about 14 thousand million years ago. This satellite is ESA's 'time machine'. Astronomers will be able to travel back in time, towards the beginning of space and time.
Planck will carry a telescope with a 4.9-foot (1.5-meter) primary mirror. Planck' routine science observations will last 15 months, allowing two sky surveys. Like Herschel, the mission could be extended, depending on the resources still available for the instruments cooling.
Published by Keith Stein
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