Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer - Spacecraft

Spacecraft

The WISE instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The WISE spacecraft bus was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado. The spacecraft is derived from the Ball Aerospace RS-300 spacecraft architecture, particularly the NEXTSat spacecraft built for the successful Orbital Express mission launched on March 9, 2007. The flight system has an estimated mass of 560 kg (1,200 lb). The spacecraft is three-axis stabilized, with body-fixed solar arrays. It uses a high-gain antenna in the K_u band to transmit to the ground through the TDRSS geostationary system. Ball also performed the testing and flight system integration.