Could NASA resurrect the Spitzer space telescope?

NASA’s Spitzer Area Telescope served the astronomy group effectively for 16 years. From its launch in 2003 to the tip of its operations in January 2020, its infrared observations fueled scientific discoveries too quite a few to listing.

Infrared telescopes should be stored cool to function, and finally, it ran out of coolant. However that wasn’t the tip of the mission; it stored working in “heat” mode, the place observations had been restricted. Its mission solely ended when it drifted too far-off from Earth to speak successfully.

Now NASA thinks they’ll reboot the telescope.

The Spitzer was one among 4 highly effective space-based observatories in NASA’s Nice Observatories program. The opposite three are the Hubble, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Collectively, they coated gamma rays, X-rays, visible light, ultraviolet mild, and infrared. (Radio waves are simply noticed from Earth.) The Compton was de-orbited in 2000, and the Hubble and the Chandra are nonetheless working.

Whereas the JWST is a way more highly effective infrared instrument than the Spitzer, its observing time is in extraordinarily excessive demand. Additionally, not all observations require such excessive energy. The Spitzer may nonetheless carry out scientifically worthwhile observations if it had been working.

However now NASA thinks they are able to get the Spitzer again into operations. They’ve given Rhea Area Exercise an STTR (Small Enterprise Know-how Switch) value $250,000 to develop the Spitzer Resurrector Mission (SRM.) The SRM would journey to Spitzer’s location, service it, and restore it to observational operations.

The Spitzer follows an uncommon Earth-trailing, heliocentric orbit, moderately than a geocentric orbit just like the Hubble. Over time, the Spitzer drifted, and in 2016, it needed to be reoriented and pitched over at an excessive angle as a way to talk with Earth. However that meant that the solar panels weren’t totally illuminated, additional limiting operations. Lastly, on January thirtieth, 2020, NASA despatched a shutdown sign to the telescope and pronounced the mission over.

The telescope orbits the sun at a distance of 1 AU and is now on the opposite facet of the sun, about two AU away from Earth.

So the Spitzer is sitting on the market with its tools intact, however out of coolant and struggling to collect sufficient solar energy to do something. Nevertheless it’s in protected mode, not lifeless. The STR mission would rectify this.

The STR is a telerobotics mission, and it might journey about 300 million km (186 million miles) and rendezvous with Spitzer. “Spitzer Resurrector is designed to restart Spitzer, affirm that it has been restored to its unique efficiency capabilities, after which stay close by to behave as a high-rate knowledge relay to Earth, thus restoring Spitzer to its full effectivity,” Rhea Area Exercise stated in a press launch.

If profitable, this might be a exceptional achievement. The power to service spacecraft on this manner can be one other important leap in capabilities for space-based astronomy.

Earlier than the mission was shut down, Spitzer observing time was in excessive demand amongst astronomers. As soon as again in operation, the telescope would little question be busy with astronomical observations once more. However Spitzer’s position would even be to seek out and characterize Close to-Earth Objects, one thing that the telescope helped pioneer with its infrared capabilities.

The hassle to revitalize Spitzer is a part of In-space Service Meeting and Manufacturing (ISAM,) and the methods employed by the STR are being explored by the Division of the Air Power (DAF) and United States Area Power (USSF). So the STR would additionally function a expertise demonstration for these methods.

“The ISAM implications of resurrecting Spitzer are jaw-dropping,” stated Shawn Usman, Astrophysicist and CEO of Rhea Area Exercise. “This could be probably the most advanced robotic mission ever carried out by humanity. As an adolescent within the Nineties, I watched U.S. astronauts restore the primary Nice Observatory, the Hubble Area Telescope (HST), and now Rhea Area Exercise has been given the chance to telerobotically lengthen the lifetime of the final Nice Observatory, the Spitzer Area Telescope. I’m humbled to have Dr. Giovanni Fazio, the Principal Investigator of Spitzer’s Infrared Array Digital camera (IRAC), as a Co-Investigator on this bold mission.”

Spitzer’s IRAC instrument was a prolific piece of apparatus, and its knowledge led to hundreds of scientific papers. Whereas this mission will restore Spitzer to operations, it will not really dock with the telescope, so it will not be capable to add coolant. The telescope will nonetheless be restricted to heat mode, so IRAC will likely be working in solely its two shorter wavelength bands, not the total spectrum of 4 bands that it is able to.

NASA has given Rhea Area Exercise a Part 1 STTR, and RSA is pursuing a Part 2 STTR. There’s nonetheless a whole lot of work to do earlier than the Spitzer may be operational once more, and neither RSA nor NASA has given a timeline for when the mission may happen.