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NASA Great Observatories Program

NASA's Great Observatories program brought together Hubble, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Chandra, and Spitzer as complementary space-based astronomy observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum. Their different observing capabilities allowed astronomers to study celestial objects beyond what a single telescope could reveal. The portfolio's missions had separate lifecycles: Compton was deorbited in June 2000 and Spitzer's mission ended in January 2020, rather than all four observatories concluding together.

NASA Great Observatories Program
NASA — Spitzer Space Telescope illustration (Great Observatories Program) · NASA current Images and Media Usage Guidelines state that NASA content is generally not subject to U.S. copyright and may be used factually for editorial or informational purposes, subject to the stated restrictions, credit, and no implied endorsement. The official NASA spacecraft-classification page identifies the Great Observatories Program and captions this exact asset as an illustration of the Spitzer Space Telescope, one of its four observatories. This unmodified illustration contains no identifiable person or NASA logo and is used only for factual identification of the NASA Great Observatories Program, without endorsement or affiliation. · Source

Identity

Aliases
Great ObservatoriesGreat Observatories ProgramNASA Great Observatories Program
Domains
spaceflight
Name
NASA Great Observatories Program
Status
completed
Types
developmentoperationsscience

Details

Description
NASA's Great Observatories program brought together Hubble, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Chandra, and Spitzer as complementary space-based astronomy observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum. Their different observing capabilities allowed astronomers to study celestial objects beyond what a single telescope could reveal. The portfolio's missions had separate lifecycles: Compton was deorbited in June 2000 and Spitzer's mission ended in January 2020, rather than all four observatories concluding together.
End Date
2020
Leads
Participants
-
Start Date
1985

Assets & Meta

Creation Time
July 29, 2026 at 08:50:06 UTC
Updated Time
October 17, 2026 at 14:03:17 UTC
Image
Download

Other

Official Urls
https://science.nasa.gov/learn/basics-of-space-flight/chapter9-1/https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-spitzer-telescope-ends-mission-of-astronomical-discovery/