NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility. or SIRTF. successfully launched from Florida's
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 25. 2003 aboard a Delta II Heavy rocket.
Flying eastward over the Atlantic Ocean. the new observatory entered an Earth-trailing orbit - the first of its kind.
This innovative orbit lets nature cool the telescope. allowing the observatory to operate longer while using less coolant.
Just four months after launch. NASA retired the SIRTF acronym and formally gave the spacecraft its new name: the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Spitzer is a cryogenically-cooled infrared observatory. and is the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space.
It's capable of studying objects ranging from our Solar System to the distant reaches of the Universe.
Spitzer is the last of four missions in NASA's Great Observatories Program -
each observing the Universe in a different kind of light. The others are Hubble. Compton. and Chandra.
Originally built to last just 2.5 years. Spitzer spent more than 5.5 years probing the cool cosmos before it
ran out of the coolant that kept its infrared instruments chilled.
Since then. Spitzer continues to observe the universe with its other instruments.
The new. warm mission will continue to unveil the far. cold and dusty universe.