FAQs: General Overview

Q:   What is the Spitzer Space Telescope? Did NASA launch a new satellite and not tell me about it?

A:   No, Spitzer used to be SIRTF. It was renamed on December 18, 2003.

Q:   How should I refer to this new Observatory?

A:   Our new observatory should be called Spitzer (in italics if in a formal setting and if you have the capability, e.g., Spitzer), not the acronym "SST," and not "SIRTF," even though our name still begins with an "S." Spitzer is not an acronym itself, so it should be mixed-case, not "SPITZER."

Q:   There seems to be a disagreement between two figures you have of the focal plane. Which is right?

A:   Yes, there is a pair of figures, and both figures actually appear in the Spitzer Observer's Manual (in addition to several other places) - one is Figure 2.1, and the other is Figure 4.5. These figures have caused a lot of hair-pulling and screaming all over the project for many, many years. The root of the confusion is that one (Fig 2.1) is the science apertures projected onto the sky, e.g. looking out of the telescope, and the other (Fig 4.5) is looking down the telescope. There is an inversion between these projections because Spitzer is a Cassegrain telescope. And, thus, the Sun appears to "flip sides."

These figures caused enough grief that there is an internal report that starts with photos of the spacecraft as it's being assembled and works through all of the possible combinations for another 20 pages. Both figures in the SOM are correct!

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