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Session 71 - Space Astronomy in the Next Millennium.
Display session, Wednesday, January 17
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center
The AURA ``HST & Beyond'' study committee recommended a 4+ m IR/visual telescope as the first facility-class space astronomy mission to follow the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) during the 2005 -- 2010 time period. Such a mission will be essential to fulfill essential goals of the ``origins'' program as considered by NASA Headquarters, the ``HST & Beyond'' committee, and other groups in the US astronomical community. That is, an IR/visual observatory will operate at the celestial background limit at mid-IR wavelengths, where light redshifted from the birth and early evolution of normal galaxies will appear. In addition, along with an extended operation of HST, a large IR/visual space observatory will offer the broad scientific community unimpeded access to two essential decades of the astronomical spectrum, from 0.2 to 20 \mum.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), as well as academia and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), have begun to study the technology, designs, and systems necessary to produce a cost-effective major new space observatory. In this poster paper, we will outline the baseline plan for design and development for the mission, as well a preliminary science program.
