WISE mission

WISE mission
NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain · source
Name	Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
Mission type	Infrared space telescope
Operator	NASA
Manufacturer	Ball Aerospace
Launch date	December 14, 2009
Launch vehicle	Delta II
Launch site	Vandenberg Air Force Base
Orbit	Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit

WISE mission The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer was a NASA infrared space telescope designed to map the entire sky in four mid-infrared bands. Launched in December 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Delta II rocket, the project was developed by a team including NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ball Aerospace, and academic partners such as University of California, Los Angeles and University of Arizona. WISE produced an all-sky catalog that became foundational for research by missions and facilities like Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Gaia, and ground-based surveys including Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Two Micron All Sky Survey.

Mission overview

WISE performed an all-sky survey in four infrared wavelengths centered near 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 micrometers, using a 40-centimeter telescope. The mission combined sky-mapping goals with target selection for later observatories such as WISE-selected targets used by James Webb Space Telescope programs and follow-ups at facilities like Keck Observatory and Very Large Telescope. Managed by NASA and operated from facilities at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission sought to detect objects from near-Earth asteroids to distant, dust-obscured galaxies discovered earlier by Infrared Astronomical Satellite and Spitzer Space Telescope.

Spacecraft and instruments

The spacecraft bus was provided by Ball Aerospace and carried a cryogenically cooled focal plane assembly developed with detectors from institutions including Raytheon and university labs. The primary instrument was a set of mercury-cadmium-telluride and arsenic-doped silicon detector arrays packaged with cryogenic cooling supplied by a solid-hydrogen cryostat. The instrument suite and telescope optics enabled simultaneous imaging in four channels using dichroic beam splitters, enabling rapid mapping of the sky with a field of view of 47 arcminutes. The design incorporated heritage from missions like COBE and IRAS in detector technology and survey strategy, and leveraged mission operations practices from Galaxy Evolution Explorer and Swift Observatory.

Scientific objectives and discoveries

Primary objectives included cataloging the positions, fluxes, and colors of millions of objects: stars, brown dwarfs, star-forming regions, active galactic nuclei, and minor planets. WISE dramatically expanded the census of cool brown dwarfs, discovering numerous objects in the Y, T, and L spectral classes that revised estimates in studies by Subaru Telescope and Keck Observatory. The mission identified thousands of previously unknown near-Earth objects and comets, informing planetary defense work at Minor Planet Center and follow-up programs at Arecibo Observatory (prior to its collapse) and Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. WISE revealed populations of luminous infrared galaxies, obscured quasars, and high-redshift dusty starbursts that connected to studies by Herschel Space Observatory, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Notable discoveries include the identification of brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood that updated the local stellar neighborhood inventory used by RECONS researchers; the detection of debris disks around nearby stars studied in follow-up by Submillimeter Array; and the discovery of extreme infrared-luminous galaxies that informed models tied to Lambda-CDM cosmology and galaxy evolution work at institutions such as Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Mission timeline and operations

After launch on December 14, 2009, WISE began routine survey operations in January 2010 and completed a full-sky coverage in July 2010 using its cryogen for optimal sensitivity. The primary cryogen depleted in October 2010, at which point the mission entered a reduced, two-band "post-cryogenic" phase that continued until early 2011. In 2013 the spacecraft was repurposed and reactivated as NEOWISE, a project led by NASA's Planetary Science Division and the University of Arizona to search for near-Earth objects using the remaining 3.4 and 4.6 μm channels. The NEOWISE phase supported surveys coordinated with observatories including Pan-STARRS and the Catalina Sky Survey, contributing to the catalog maintained by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.

Data processing and archives

WISE data were processed by pipelines developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and archived at the Infrared Science Archive and other NASA data centers. Products included calibrated images, source catalogs, coadds, and time-resolved single-exposure data enabling variability studies tied to projects at European Southern Observatory and university archives. The AllWISE data release combined cryogenic and post-cryogenic data, while NEOWISE releases provided time-series photometry used by teams at institutions like Caltech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of California, Berkeley. These publicly accessible archives have been integrated into virtual observatory frameworks used by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance and leveraged by citizen-science efforts hosted by Zooniverse.

Legacy and impact on astronomy

WISE transformed infrared astrophysics by providing an all-sky infrared map that enabled discoveries across solar-system science, stellar astrophysics, and extragalactic astronomy. The mission's catalogs underpin target selection for missions like James Webb Space Telescope and legacy surveys such as Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (now Vera C. Rubin Observatory), while its brown-dwarf census influenced theoretical work at institutions including University of Cambridge and Princeton University. NEOWISE continues to inform planetary defense assessments coordinated by NASA and international partners like European Space Agency. WISE's success fostered instrument and survey designs for subsequent missions and facilities, influencing projects at Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and academic consortia worldwide.

Category:NASA space telescopes Category:Infrared telescopes Category:Spacecraft launched in 2009