The Herschel Space Observatory is a space observatory from the European Space Agency (ESA). It was originally proposed in 1982 by a consortium of European scientists. The mission is named after Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of the infrared spectrum and planet Uranus.
Herschel will specialise in collecting light from objects in our Solar System as well as the Milky Way and even extragalactic objects billions of light-years away, such as newborn galaxies, and is charged with four primary areas of investigation:
The mission, formerly titled the Far Infrared and Sub-millimetre Telescope (FIRST), involves the first space observatory to cover the full far infrared and submillimetre waveband. At 3.5 meters wide, its telescope incorporates the largest mirror ever deployed in space. The light is focused onto three instruments with detectors kept at temperatures below 2 K (−271 °C). The instruments are cooled with liquid helium, boiling away in a near vacuum at a temperature of approximately 1.4 K (−272 °C). The 2,000-litre supply of helium on board the satellite will limit its operational lifetime, nonetheless it is expected to be operational for at least 3 years.
Herschel carries three detectors:
Service Module – a common development for Herschel and Planck
Structurally the Herschel and Planck SVM's are very similar. Both SVM's are of octagonal shape and for both, each panel is dedicated to accommodate a designated set of warm units, while taking into account the dissipation requirements of the different warm units, of the instruments as well as the spacecraft.
Furthermore, on both spacecraft a common design for the avionics, the attitude control and measurement system (ACMS) and the command and data management system (CDMS), and power subsystem and the tracking, telemetry and command subsystem (TT&C) has been achieved.
All spacecraft units on the SVM are redundant.
On each spacecraft, the power subsystem consists of the solar array, employing triple-junction solar cells, a battery and the power control unit (PCU). It is designed to interface with the 30 sections of each solar array, provide a regulated 28 V bus, distribute this power via protected outputs and to handle the battery charging and discharging.
This function is performed by the attitude control computer (ACC) which is the platform for the ACMS. It is designed to fulfil the pointing and slewing requirements of the Herschel and Planck payload.
The Herschel satellite is three-axis stabilized, the absolute pointing error needs to be less than 3.7 arc sec.
The main sensor of the line of sight in both spacecraft is the star tracker.
Launch and orbit
The satellite, built in the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center, under Thales Alenia Space Contractorship, was successfully launched from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana at 13:12:02 UTC on 14 May 2009, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, along with the Planck spacecraft..
It is now on a very elliptical orbit (perigee: 270.0 km (intended 270.0±4.5), apogee: 1,197,080 km (intended 1,193,622±151,800), inclination 5.99 deg (intended 6.00±0.06)), on its way towards the second Lagrangian point.
On June 14, 2009, ESA successfully sent the command for the cryocover to open which will allow the PACS system to see the sky and transmit images in a few weeks. The lid had to remain closed until the telescope was well into space to prevent contamination. Herschel is reported to have completed 90% of the distance to its orbit 1.5 million km away from Earth. Five days later the first set of test photos, depicting M51 Group, has been published by ESA.
In July 2009, approximately sixty days after launch, it is expected to enter a Lissajous orbit of 800,000 km average radius around the second Lagrangian point (L2) of the Earth-Sun system, 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.
Published - July 2009
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