Today marks the 25th anniversary from the launch of IRAS (January 25, 1983). The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) is WISE's predecessor, successfully conducting a ten month all-sky survey. For more information about the IRAS mission, visit NASA's IRAS page.

The "eyes of WISE," four infrared focal plane assemblies (FPAs), have completed testing at the suppliers DRS and Teledyne Instrument Systems and have been delivered to the builder of the WISE Payload, Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory. These FPAs will make it possible for WISE to realize it's objective of improving on the sensitivity of the previous all sky survey at these wavelengths by about a factor of 1000.

NASA has provided the WISE with "Approval to Proceed" (ATP) with the construction of the WISE launch vehicle. WISE will be launched on a Delta 7320 from the Western Test Range in November, 2009. The WISE Delta will be built and launched by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corporations.

The WISE project has successfully completed its Mission Critical Design Reveiw (CDR). The CDR is an important milestone in the development of the WISE project. It marks the formal completion of design work and the transition to construction and test of the WISE flight and ground systems.

Teacher Professional Development Workshops
We hold regular teacher professional development workshops at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. These workshops are free and cover a wide range of space science concepts. Check out the workshops webpage to find out more, including what workshops are coming up soon.