Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite spacecraft
SWAS was a 288 kg NASA Small Explorer observatory with three-axis stellar pointing, reaction wheels, magnetic torque coils and a CCD star tracker. Its 55 × 71 cm off-axis Cassegrain telescope fed two passively cooled Schottky receivers and an acousto-optical spectrometer. It measured five submillimeter spectral lines from water, molecular oxygen, atomic carbon and carbon-monoxide isotopes to investigate interstellar-cloud chemistry and cooling. Solar arrays provided about 230 W of orbital-average power.
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Identity
- Aliases
- SWASSubmillimeter Wave Astronomy SatelliteExplorer 74SMEX-3
- Family Name
- SWAS
- Full Name
- Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite spacecraft
- Roles
- observatoryresearch
- Status
- retired
- Type
- spacecraft
Details
- Description
- SWAS was a 288 kg NASA Small Explorer observatory with three-axis stellar pointing, reaction wheels, magnetic torque coils and a CCD star tracker. Its 55 × 71 cm off-axis Cassegrain telescope fed two passively cooled Schottky receivers and an acousto-optical spectrometer. It measured five submillimeter spectral lines from water, molecular oxygen, atomic carbon and carbon-monoxide isotopes to investigate interstellar-cloud chemistry and cooling. Solar arrays provided about 230 W of orbital-average power.
- First Flight Year
- 1,998
- Last Flight Year
- 2,005
- Operator
- Spacecraft Specs
- Launch Mass
- …
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/swas/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- August 14, 2026 at 04:59:57 UTC
- Updated Time
- October 29, 2026 at 15:51:30 UTC
- Image
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