New Space Telescope to Begin Test Run

Mission managers are preparing to pop the lid off a space telescope that will provide them with a glimpse of strange objects that lie in the distant cosmos.

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) will undergo a one-month checkout before beginning a detailed survey of the entire sky in infrared light. Once activated, researchers will be able to catalog hundreds of millions of objects including dark asteroids, failed stars and luminous galaxies.

The space telescope had acquired the sun's position and lined up with its solar panels facing the sun shortly after reaching its polar orbit around Earth on Dec. 14. All spacecraft systems, including both the low- and high-rate data links, are confirmed to be working properly and the instrument's detectors have been turned on, NASA said in a statement this week. Scientists will continue to check out the spacecraft's pointing-control system until Dec. 29 ? the day the instrument's cover is scheduled to come off.

The cover protects the instrument by preventing light from reaching the detectors and shielding the heat-sensitive interior of the telescope from heat that may come from any accidental pointing at Earth or the sun during launch.

Once everything checks out, engineers will send a signal to fire pyrotechnic devices to release nuts that are clamping the cover shut. Three springs will then push the lid away and into an orbit closer to Earth than that of the spacecraft.

WISE's first images will be released within a month after its one-month checkout.

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