Göran Pilbratt's plenary presentation from SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation Symposium 2010.
http://spie.org/as
The Herschel Space Observatory was success- fully launched on 14 May 2009, carried into space by an Ariane 5 ECA launcher together with the second passenger Planck, both spacecraft being injected into transfer orbits
towards L2 with exquisite precision. Herschel is the most recent observa- tory mission in the European Space Agency (ESA) science programme. It carries a 3.5 meter diameter Cassegrain passively cooled monolithic silicon carbide telescope. The focal plane units of the science payload complement - two cameras/medium resolution imaging spectrometers, the Photodetec- tor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) and Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver (SPIRE), and the very high resolution Heterodyne Instru- ment for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) spectrometer - are housed in a superfluid helium cryostat.
Herschel is the first large aperture space infrared observatory; it builds on previous infrared space missions including the ESA ISO and NASA Spitzer observatories, by offering a much larger telescope and pushes towards lon- ger wavelengths. It will perform imaging photometry and spectroscopy in the far infrared and sub-millimeter part of the spectrum, covering approxi- mately the 55-672 micron range. I will describe Herschel and its science capabilities putting it into perspective. Herschel is designed to observe the 'cool universe'; the key science objectives include star and galaxy forma- tion and evolution, and in particular the physics, dynamics, and chemistry of the interstellar medium and its molecular clouds, the wombs of the stars and planets.
Herschel is currently opening a new window to study how the universe has evolved to become the universe we see today, and how our star the sun, our planet the earth, and we ourselves fit in. I will outline the early in- flight operations of Herschel and the transition from launch and early opera- tional phases into the routine science phase. I will present the demonstrated science capabilities and provide examples of scientific highlights to date.
Herschel has been designed to offer a minimum of 3 years of routine sci- ence observations. Nominally ~20,000 hours will be available for astronomy, 32% is guaranteed time (GT) and the remainder is open time (OT) offered to the general astronomical community through a standard competitive pro- posal procedure. The time allocation for both GT and OT Key Programs was been concluded before the launch. I will describe future observing opportu- nities at the time of the meeting the OT part of the next AO will be ongoing.
