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NEOWISE Mission
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft was launched on November 14, 2009, and began its survey operations simultaneously imaging the sky at 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns on January 10, 2010. The secondary cryogen reservoir of solid hydrogen was depleted on 2010 August 4 (MJD 55412), resulting soon after in the saturation of the 22 micron channel. The survey then continued in 12, 4.6, and 3.4 microns, the so-called 3-band cryogenic phase, until the primary reservoir was depleted at the end of 2010 September (MJD 55469). After this, science survey operations were extended for the next 4 months in 3.4 and 4.6 microns until 2011 February 1 (MJD 55593), when the "post-cryogenic" mission phase ended. At this point the spacecraft was placed into a hibernation state. The success of NEOWISE in this first period, a little more than a year of survey operations referred to as the "prime mission," led to the decision to restart the WISE spacecraft and the survey in 2013 exclusively for the purposes of surveying solar system bodies. The reactivated spacecraft was renamed NEOWISE, after the planetary mission, and the survey has been underway since 2013 December 23 (MJD 56649).
NEOWISE utilized the WISE spacecraft data to provide an unprecedented number of radiometrically determined diameters and mid-infrared photometric observations of small bodies. During the WISE prime mission starting in January of 2010 and lasting through January of 2011, over 158000 solar system objects were detected by the spacecraft before it was placed in hibernation in February of 2011. Since the reactivation, NEOWISE has detected >12000 minor planets at 3.4 and 4.6 microns.
WISE/NEOWISE data is primarily archived at NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.
Instruments
- Survey Camera
Data Sets
Other Mission Datasets
Related Datasets
Use the Small Bodies Data Ferret to find other datasets for this mission/target.
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