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About IUE
- Mission Operations
- Spacecraft Description
- Science Instrument Description
- IUE Observing Guide
- History of the Project
- GSFC Observing Scripts
- a form for displaying GSFC observing scripts (or preview images)
for a specified camera and image sequence number.
- IUE Observing Programs - a very long list. You may find it easier to search a database of the IUE Observing Programs.
The IUE satellite was launched on January 26, 1978. It had an expected
lifetime of 3 years, with a goal of 5 years, but exceeded that beyond
anyone's wildest dreams. When it was shut down on September 30, 1996,
it had been in continuous operation for 18 years and 9 months.
IUE was an international collaboration among three groups: NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the United Kingdom's Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC; now Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, or PPARC ). NASA provided the launch, spacecraft engineering support and software. ESA provided the solar panels and a satellite command station outside of Madrid, Spain, and the UK provided the Vidicon cameras. Observing time was split between two spacecraft command stations. NASA operated the spacecraft for 16 hours a day from Goddard Space Flight Center, and VILSPA (the Villafranca satellite control station) operated it for 8 hours a day.
IUE's geosynchronous orbit allowed for real-time operation, which made IUE very flexible. Astronomers came to the spacecraft command stations to direct their observations and inspect the data as they were collected, much as they do at ground-based observatories. Two on-board spectrographs covered ultraviolet wavelengths from 1200 to 3350 Å.
Observers from around the world took advantage of this workhorse observatory, gathering data from a wide variety of astronomical sources. Objects observed by IUE include virtually every type of object in the universe, from planets and stars to galaxies. One of IUE's strengths was the ability to rapidly respond to targets of opportunity such as comets, novae, and supernovae. IUE obtained the only ultraviolet data of the outburst of Supernova 1987a in the Large Magellanic Cloud. By tracking on the nucleus of fast-moving Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock, IUE was able to obtain the first detection of molecular sulfur in a comet. During July 1994, IUE (along with the rest of the globe) spent a good deal of time observing Jupiter when Comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with the planet.
Astronomers study multiple wavelengths in order to learn more about the objects of the universe. Simultaneous data acquisition is essential in order to gain the most knowledge of certain transient events. Thus, very often IUE was used in conjunction with other telescopes from around the world. These collaborations have involved spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the ROSAT, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Voyager probes, the Space Shuttle's ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions, the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer, Japan's ASCA satellite, as well as numerous ground-based observatories.
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