SIRTF launches August 25!
 

Hi all,

NASA's next Great Observatory, SIRTF (Space Infrared Telescope Facility) is currently scheduled to launch Monday morning, August 25, at 1:35 AM Eastern Time, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I'm the flight operations lead for SIRTF's Pointing Control System. Because I work with the satellite, not the launch vehicle, I'm in Denver Colorado for this launch. That's where Lockheed Martin has the Engineering Control Center for SIRTF, and that's where I'll be for at least the next six months.

Here are a couple of good websites. The first has lots of information about what SIRTF is and what it's going to do. The second includes a live video feed from the launch site.

[url]http://sirtf.caltech.edu/[/url]

[url]http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/payloads/missions/sirtf/[/url]

And, just in case launch gets delayed (again), [url]http://www.spaceflightnow.com/[/url] usually gets the scoop first.

Wish SIRTF luck!

Do you have it doing a DC project? Maybe Gimps?? :D

[quote="Uncwilly"]Do you have it doing a DC project? Maybe Gimps?? :D[/quote]

Surely SETI@home would be more appropriate?

Wouldn't matter much either way. The processor is only 20 MHz. The throughput would be terrible.

Let's see, 20 MHz for 4.5 years would be 1 P90-year. This is a 5.2 year mission. Allow 50% of the CPU time for actually running the spacecraft, that leaves 2.6 years for GIMPS. 2.6/4.5 = 0.58 P-90 years, or a little over 1 doublecheck. I'm not sure what it translates to in terms of SETI@home work units, but it won't be good either. Probably not worth bothering with. :D

However, it would take the crown for the most $$$$/iteration system to ever run a DC project.

Just imagine trying to explain this coming across the downlink:

UID: dswanson/20-a, M10984637 is not prime. Res64: 83CCB51CAC72D866. WZ1: 0F2D2744,3586156,00000000

Wait a sec, is there a posibility of overclocking? Then you could get in posibly two doublechecks! ;)
20MHz -> 35MHz, Awesome!

Congrats on a sucessful launch! :banana: :banana: :banana:

If it found a prime nobody would hear it beeping :shock:

[quote="robreid"]If it found a prime nobody would hear it beeping :shock:[/quote]
If someone did, it would be a simultaneous success for GIMPS and SETI. ;)

Wasn't the launch initially scheduled in January 2003?

Thanks for the congrats. It's healthy and operating well, although we're still working out a few of the usual early kinks. We don't start taking pictures for several more weeks yet, but they should be spectacular when we do.

[quote="asdf"]Wasn't the launch initially scheduled in January 2003?[/quote]
Yes. Then it moved to April 2003. We got within 5 days of launching in April before NASA decided they didn't like one of the solid motors on the launch vehicle. So we ended up in August. Thank goodness we're finally off the ground!