For several years studies have been conducted at the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory on four passively-cooled submillimeter-wavelength, space observatories. Two exploratory missions were studied: a 2.5-m Submillimeter Explorer (SMME) and a more ambitious 3.7-m Submillimeter Imager and Line Survey (SMILS). Only one of these missions would actually be flown, and its goal would be to perform a high-spectral-resolution survey of several hundreds of sources at wavelengths between 100 and about 750 microns with modest angular resolution. Following either SMME or SMILS, the Large Deployable Reflector (LDR) and/or the Synthesis Array for Lunar Submillimeter Astronomy (SALSA) would be flown. LDR is a 10- to 20-m diameter telescope with greatly increased sensitivity and imaging capabilities compared to the exploratory missions. SALSA is a lunar-based array consisting of twelve 3.5-m diameter telescopes with a maximum baseline of nearly 1-km. With operating wavelengths between 30 and 500 microns, SALSA would achieve 10 milliarcsecond angular resolution, and thus could explore source structure in much greater detail than the other missions. The purpose of this paper is to present the current conceptual designs for these missions, and to discuss the most recent payload analysis.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Four NASA submillimeter-wavelength space-astrophysics missions


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1991-10-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English






    Active Refrigeration for Space Astrophysics Missions

    Wade, L. A. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1995



    NASA space science Vision Missions

    Allen, Marc S. | TIBKAT | 2008