* Astronomy

Landsat's TIRS Instrument Comes Out of First Round of Thermal Vacuum Testing

The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) that will fly on the next Landsat satellite came out of its first round of thermal vacuum testing Tuesday, October 4 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The two-month test marked the first time engineers evaluated the fully-assembled instrument at its normal operating temperature, a frigid 43 Kelvin (-382° F). The verdict is that TIRS is living up to its design and even exceeding expectations in some areas. The thermal imager is one of two instruments that will fly on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) scheduled to launch in December 2012.
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