Mission
SIM Lite would have operated in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The SIM would have drifted away from Earth at the rate of 0.1 AU per year. At the end of the planned mission, it would have reached a distance of 82 million km from Earth. This would have taken approximately 5½ years. The Sun would have continuously shone on the spacecraft, allowing it to avoid the occultations of target stars and eclipses of the sun that would occur in an Earth orbit.
Had it been launched, SIM would have performed scientific research for five years.
Read more about this topic: Space Interferometry Mission
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“I am succeeding quite well in my work and the future looks well. What special mission is God preparing me for? Cutting off all earthly ties and isolating me as it were.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)