TY - JOUR
T1 - Highlights from HST/NICMOS
AU - Schneider, G.
N1 - Funding Information:
The NICMOS Science Team offers special thanks to the STS-109 crew (S. Altman, D. Carey, J. Grunsfeld, N. Curry, R. Linnehan, J. Newman, and M. Massimo), and all of the folks at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and STScI for making the revival of NICMOS a reality. This work is supported by NASA grants NAG5-3042 and 10843 to the NICMOS Instrument Definition and Guaranteed Time Observing Teams.
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - The near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer (NICMOS) was installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in February 1997. After 22 months of operation the 110 kg supply of solid N 2 , which cooled the NICMOS-3 HgCdTe detectors, was exhausted. The cryostat warmed up leaving the instrument in an electromechanically functional, but scientifically non-viable, passive state. Following a three year suspension of observations, an active cooling system featuring a reverse Brayton cycle micro-turbine was installed and integrated with NICMOS during HST servicing mission 3B. As a result the NICMOS detectors and cold optics have successfully been re-cooled to operationally effective temperatures and the science program has begun. We review the operating characteristics of the NICMOS instrument, its new cooling system, and its performance both in absolute terms and in comparison to its previous on-orbit incarnation. We discuss the scope and nature of the astronomical investigations that have been and are again enabled with NICMOS. Additionally, we present some of the first scientific results from programs executed with the re-cooled NICMOS.
AB - The near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer (NICMOS) was installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in February 1997. After 22 months of operation the 110 kg supply of solid N 2 , which cooled the NICMOS-3 HgCdTe detectors, was exhausted. The cryostat warmed up leaving the instrument in an electromechanically functional, but scientifically non-viable, passive state. Following a three year suspension of observations, an active cooling system featuring a reverse Brayton cycle micro-turbine was installed and integrated with NICMOS during HST servicing mission 3B. As a result the NICMOS detectors and cold optics have successfully been re-cooled to operationally effective temperatures and the science program has begun. We review the operating characteristics of the NICMOS instrument, its new cooling system, and its performance both in absolute terms and in comparison to its previous on-orbit incarnation. We discuss the scope and nature of the astronomical investigations that have been and are again enabled with NICMOS. Additionally, we present some of the first scientific results from programs executed with the re-cooled NICMOS.
KW - HST/NICMOS
KW - Hubble space telescope
KW - Multi-object spectrometer
KW - Near-infrared camera
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U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2003.05.033
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2003.05.033
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:3042604628
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 34
SP - 543
EP - 552
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 3
ER -