UA telescopes 'hitchhiking' into space with John Glenn

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat

The shuttle will carry two University of Arizona-produced telescopes: the Ultraviolet Spectrograph Telescope for Astronomical Research and the Spectrograph Telescope for Astronomical Research, also known as "Star-Lite."

The telescopes will be placed at opposite ends of a platform inside the shuttle. Both are part of the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker Experiment, made up of six instruments used to study stars, supernova remnants and star formations.

The launch will be historic because Glenn, a Democratic U.S. senator from Ohio, will be on board, returning to space for the first time in 36 years.

A team of UA scientists will observe the shuttle's nine-day orbit around Earth from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"We use the shuttle as an experimental platform that develops instruments for deep space and to put hardware on (future) space stations," said Lyle Broadfoot, a UA lunar and planetary senior research scientist.

The UA team will monitor the telescopes from the ground by sending programs through a computer.

"We will operate the instrument like a remote control," said Broadfoot, who heads the team that will observe the spectrograph telescope. "And we can see what's it doing from the computer."

The ultraviolet spectrograph telescope, a joint project between the UA and the Center of Advanced Research in Space Optics at the University of Trieste in Italy, will operate 24 hours a day throughout the mission. The 10 team members will take turns looking during 30-minute observation periods.

"We will share the workload," Broadfoot said. "Each group will do what's most useful."

The ultraviolet spectrograph telescope works in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, which will be able to detect stellar and planetary objects, Broadfoot said.

"We will observe the torus of Jupiter," he said.

The torus is a source of material powerful enough to form plasma, a collection of charged particles that are relatively stable. It surrounds Jupiter at the orbit of its moon Io.

The torus image will be seen in its entirety. Before, the spacecraft Galileo could view the image, but not the whole structure.

"You can't see the forest through the trees," Broadfoot said about the Galileo picture.

Broadfoot has been the principal investigator since the first missions to space in 1991 - this will be his eighth mission.

It will be Broadfoot's third flight with the ultraviolet spectrograph telescope. He also headed the Space Transportation System-69 in 1995 and Space Transportation System-85 more than a year ago.

"The Italians and ourselves provided $3 million and we got $1 million from NASA," Broadfoot said. "The first proposal was in 1986, for funding from NASA that was interrupted by the Challenger."

The telescope should be in a good position, pointing directly away from the Earth, he said.

"That's the icing on the cake," Broadfoot said. "To actually experiment, operate, see if it'll do what we want it to do."

The difference between the Star-Lite and the ultraviolet spectrograph telescope is that the Star-Lite shows a larger picture.

"The big field of view is looked at through angular extent - it extends to non-stellar sources," said Jay Holberg, principal investigator and UA senior researcher of lunar and planetary sciences. "Normally, you can only see a star in the field of view."

Holberg said scientists want to see supernova remnants and globular clusters. Supernova remnants are what is left over after a star has exploded. Globular clusters are large groups of stars.

Holberg said such clusters, which can contain half a million stars, hold several hundred of the oldest stars in our galaxies.

"The few bright ones will be seen," Holberg said. "How hot they are tells us the history of the globular clusters."

Astronomers can tell how hot a star is by its color, he said.

Clusters and remnants are the top priorities on a target list of 100 objects to see in space.

"We're going to see as much as we can see," Holberg said.

Star-Lite runs in a similar wavelength to the spectrograph telescope. It operates from 900 to 1,200 angstroms. An angstrom is a measurement for light wavelengths that is one-billionth of a meter. Visible light wavelengths are between 4,000 to 7,000 angstroms.

Two UA students will assist with the observations.

David Sing, an astronomy and physics senior, will send commands through the control instrument to the Star-Light. After Sing receives the data, it will be interpreted by professors.

Sing will receive his training after he arrives at Goddard.

"I'm pretty excited - I get to miss two weeks of school," he said.

Sing is the only undergraduate student involved in the telescope experiments. His work on the UA Satellite Project earned him the chance to participate.

The team will operate from a control center that will have three instrument operators and two programmers who supervise them.

Scientists give commands to the programmers, who in turn will give the information to the operators.

"As a student I have the opportunity to go to Goddard, to do cutting-edge science," said Jim Collins, an astronomy and physics graduate student. "(We) get close to what excites everybody - going to space to explore the unknown. We are one of the few lucky ones."

Collins will be a data analyst for both telescopes. He said he is living a dream.

"Since we were kids, we liked Star Trek," Collins said. "It's a chance for us to see the real thing, we're part of the science fiction."

Irene Hsiao can be reached via e-mail at Irene.Hsiao@wildcat.arizona.edu.