http://sirtf.caltech.edu/newsarchive/iocstatusupdates.shtml

SIRTF Update
November 21, 2003

This update was posted on Friday, November 21, the 89th day of the mission. Science verification activities continue and all operating systems are normal. A 62-hour IRAC campaign started on Wednesday night (Pacific time) and included testing of mitigation strategies for latent images, characterization of bright source effects, measurements of the array distortions, and validation of the IRAC observing mode. Starting late Saturday morning, a 22-hour IRS campaign will be devoted to diagnostic measurements of the long-low filter and the instrument peakup performance. A 39-hour MIPS campaign begins Sunday morning and will include validation activities for the scan mapping observing mode, the spectral energy distribution mode, and the photometry mode. It will also feature measurements of celestial flux standards and various engineering tasks. The mission's nominal 90-day in-orbit checkout and science verification phase will be extended for seven days, primarily to account for interruptions caused by solar storms. The science mission is tentatively scheduled to begin on December 1 with the SIRTF First-Look Survey. The next mission update is scheduled for Tuesday, November 25.