Computer Science – Performance
Scientific paper
Dec 1995
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995aas...187.0408p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 187th AAS Meeting, #04.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 27, p.1289
Computer Science
Performance
Scientific paper
FIRST (Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Space Telescope), an ESA mission, is a high sensitivity submillimeter spectroscopy and continuum satellite, approved as a "Horizon 2000" Cornerstone mission for launch in 2005/6. It has an ESA assigned budget of 400 MAU (1984 European accounting units; 1 MAU is slightly more than 1M.) The primary goals of the mission are the detection and study of distant and possibly primordial galaxies (1 < z < 5), and the detection and study of stars forming in the local interstellar medium. The NASA goal is to contribute to the technical and scientific aspects of the program, to provide a significantly enhanced international mission, through the use of advanced US technology, and also result in core program and open time science opportunites to US astronomers. NASA would be a partner in FIRST with ESA, at a level still to be determined. Our own project in this field, SMIM, is similar to FIRST, and although planned some time ago, could not be constructed on a competitive timescale, so the US submillimeter community has decided to try to join the European project. The FIRST mission, as approved, is a 3-m diameter, radiatively cooled (165K) telescope for high-throughput spectroscopy and photometry in the submillimeter and far-infrared range (85-900 microns, 3.5-0.33 THz). Best angular resolution is about 7''. The payload consists of a cryogenic focal plane system with: superconducting tunnel junction (SIS) heterodyne detectors providing near quantum-noise performance for high spectral resolution (R >= 10^4) in the 500-1200 GHz range; imaging photoconductor arrays for photometry (R ~3) or medium resolution spectroscopy (R ~10^4) in the 85-210 micron band; and bolometer arrays for spectroscopy in the 200-300 micron band and photometry in the 200-900 micron band. The nominal mission lifetime is 2 years, but could be extended to six years depending on the final cryogenic technology employed.
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