VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, lifted off over the Pacific Ocean this morning on its way to map the entire sky in infrared frequency.

A Delta II rocket carrying the spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket deposited WISE into a polar orbit 326 miles above Earth.

Engineers acquired a signal from the spacecraft via NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System just 10 seconds after the spacecraft separated from the rocket.

Approximately three minutes later, WISE re-oriented itself with its solar panels facing the sun to generate its own power.

17 minutes later valves on the cryostat, a chamber of super-cold hydrogen ice that cools the WISE instrument, opened.

Because the instrument sees the infrared, or heat, signatures of objects, it must be kept at chilly temperatures – its coldest detectors are less than minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit.

WISE will see the infrared “colors” of the whole sky with sensitivity and resolution far better than the last infrared sky survey, performed 26 years ago.

Just about everything in the universe glows in infrared, which means the mission will catalog a variety of astronomical targets, among wich Near-Earth asteroids, stars, planet-forming disks and distant galaxies. Hundreds of millions of objects will populate

the WISE atlas, providing astronomers and other space missions with a long-lasting infrared roadmap.

More information about the WISE mission is available online at:

Source: NASA