Space-Based Telescopes
 
Chandra Observatory Chandra
Deployed on July 23, 1999, from the Space Shuttle Columbia, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is one of NASA's four "Great Observatories" and its flagship mission for X-ray astronomy. Today, the science and flight operations of the Chandra X-ray Observatory are directed for NASA from SAO in Cambridge from the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC). The Operations Control Center (OCC), under the direction of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, is also part of the CXC.
Hinode (Solar B) Hinode (Solar-B)
Solar-B, now renamed Hinode (the Japanese word for "sunrise") was launched on September 23, 2006, from Kyushu, Japan. Onboard the satellite was the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), a high-resolution grazing incidence telescope, designed and developed by a Japan-U.S. collaboration, which included SAO, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
Soho/UVCS Solar and Heliosheric Observatory
SAO's Ultraviolet Coronograph Spectrometer (UVCS) is one of a suite of instruments onboard the international Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Launched by NASA on December 2, 1995, SOHO combines 12 complementary instruments in a cooperative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA to study the sun and the solar wind.
Spitzer Space Telescope Spitzer Space Telescope
The last of NASA's Great Observatories, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was launched August 25, 2003, and later renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope, in honor of the late Dr. Lyman Spitzer, Jr. One of three instruments onboard is the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), a joint project of SAO, Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Arizona, and the University of Rochester.
 
 

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