ASTRO-F : Infrared Imaging Surveyor (IRIS) Mission

Abstract

The ASTRO-F (also known as Infrared Imaging Surveyor: IRIS) is the second infrared satellitemission of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan tobe launched early 2004 with the M-V rocket and is planned asa second generation infrared sky survey mission. It has a 67-cm aperture telescope and is cooled by 170-liter liquid helium andStirling-cycle coolers. Two scientific instrumentsshare the focal plane. The infrared camera (IRC) covers 2 to 26 μm rangewith large two-dimensional arrays in the imaging and low-resolution spectroscopicmodes and will perform deep sky surveys of selected areas of thesky with a wide field of view (10' × 10') at unprecedented sensitivity.The far-infrared Surveyor (FIS), consisting ofan imaging scanner and a Fourier transform spectrometer, covers 50 to 200 μm range and makes a wholesky survey in four far-infrared bands, which is higher by more than 10 in sensitivity(20-110 mJy), better by several in the spatial resolution (30''-50''),and longer in the spectral coverage (200 μm) than IRAS. A brief description and the current statusof the ASTRO-F mission are presented.