Herschel

Herschel
The goal of the ESA cornerstone mission Herschel is understanding the connection between formation of stars and planetary systems with interstellar clouds and interstellar medium. To that end, extensive observations of interstellar molecular clouds and dust in the far infrared and submilimeter range are needed. The participants of the project include the Nicolas Copernicus Astronomical Center PAS and the Space Research Centre PAS. The spacecraft, whose launch is scheduled for 2007, will be located in the so-called Lagrange point L2 and will observe in the spectral range from 100 to 600 micrometers, a spectral window at the boundary between infrared and radio frequencies that has never been covered by astronomical observations till now.

HIFI Heterodyne Instrument for Herschel Mission
Space Research Centre is involved in design and manufacturing of part of Local Oscillator subsystem for HIFI instrument. In the middle of 2001 the first, laboratory prototype of LO Control Unit was manufactured in SRC (photo rihgt) and then tested in JPL. Basing on the results of the tests, in the end of 2001 the fully working HLCU engineering model called Advanced Simulator (photos below) was manufactured and tested in Warsaw. The integration of HLCU AS with first microvawe chain was done at the beginning of 2001 in MPIFR in Bonn, and finished with full succes.
(P. Orleański)