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| Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer | |
|---|---|
| Name | Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer |
| Mission type | Astronomy |
| Operator | NASA / ESA |
| COSPAR ID | 1992-020A |
| SATCAT | 21870 |
| Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace |
| Launch date | 1992-06-07 |
| Launch vehicle | Delta II |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral Air Force Station |
| Disposal type | Decommissioned |
| Deactivated | 2001-02-02 |
| Orbit | High Earth |
Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer was a NASA astrophysics satellite developed by Ball Aerospace and launched by a Delta II rocket during the administration of George H. W. Bush. The mission, operated with contributions from the European Space Agency and academic institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, surveyed the sky in the extreme ultraviolet band to study hot plasmas in astrophysical sources such as white dwarfs, cataclysmic variables, and the interstellar medium. Its operations overlapped programs and facilities like the Hubble Space Telescope, ROSAT, and later Chandra X-ray Observatory, providing complementary coverage across the electromagnetic spectrum.
The project originated in proposals to the NASA astrophysics program and was shaped by priorities set at panels convened by the National Academy of Sciences and the Goddard Space Flight Center. Development involved engineering teams at Ball Aerospace and scientific teams from institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, University of Colorado Boulder, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The spacecraft operated in a high-altitude elliptical orbit after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a Delta II booster provided by McDonnell Douglas. Management and data archiving engaged facilities such as the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center and linked to ground networks including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory tracking stations and the European Space Operations Centre.
The primary objective was an all-sky survey in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) band to catalog and characterize EUV sources, complementing contemporaneous missions like ROSAT and observatories such as International Ultraviolet Explorer and Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. Science goals included measuring EUV fluxes from hot stellar atmospheres represented by objects like Sirius, Procyon, and compact sources typified by Sirius B analogues, investigating plasma processes in supernova remnants such as Crab Nebula targets, and probing the ionization state of the local interstellar medium near the Local Bubble. The mission provided key inputs for theoretical work at institutions such as Princeton University, Caltech, and Cambridge University on radiative transfer and stellar atmosphere modeling developed by researchers affiliated with programs like the Hubble Fellowship and agencies like the National Science Foundation.
The observatory carried grazing-incidence and normal-incidence spectrometers and imaging detectors developed with technologies from vendors and laboratories including Lockheed Martin research teams and university optics groups. The instrument complement featured arrays of microchannel plate detectors, multilayer-coated optics, and filter assemblies similar in heritage to components used on missions from EUVT and design concepts referenced by engineers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Key instrument builders included scientists affiliated with the University of Leicester and instrument calibration used facilities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and beamlines at synchrotrons tied to Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
Mission operations were conducted from control centers coordinating with the Goddard Space Flight Center mission operations team, incorporating scheduling and telemetry processing influenced by precedents set by the International Ultraviolet Explorer and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Data were downlinked to ground stations in the United States and Europe and processed through pipelines developed with software libraries used at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and archival centers such as HEASARC. Catalogs and calibrated products were distributed to the community, supporting follow-up observations at facilities including the Keck Observatory, Very Large Telescope, Arecibo Observatory, and radio arrays like the Very Large Array and Atacama Large Millimeter Array.
The survey discovered numerous EUV-bright hot white dwarfs, active binary systems resembling prototypes like Algol, and accreting compact objects related to the SS Cygni and U Geminorum classes, advancing understanding of mass transfer in close binaries studied at universities such as University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. Measurements constrained the column densities of interstellar helium and hydrogen in the local cavity modeled by research groups at University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin–Madison, and informed plasma diagnostics used by theorists at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and astrochemistry teams at California Institute of Technology. Cross-correlation with catalogs from Hipparcos and surveys from Sloan Digital Sky Survey augmented distance and spectral type determinations, while time-series detections aided studies of stellar flares and coronal heating mechanisms pursued by investigators at Stanford University and Columbia University.
The mission's catalog and calibrated EUV spectra remain a resource in archives maintained by HEASARC and the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, influencing instrument design for later missions like Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope concepts and detector advances in programs supported by NASA and the European Space Agency. The project trained generations of scientists and engineers who later contributed to flagship missions including Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, and James Webb Space Telescope, and informed policies at research funders such as the National Science Foundation and agencies coordinating multinational science like European Southern Observatory. The satellite was formally decommissioned following planned shutdown and re-entry considerations overseen by teams at NASA Goddard and mission partners at Ball Aerospace.
Category:NASA satellites Category:Space telescopes Category:Astrophysics spacecraft