ISO in Post Operations

ISO in Post Operations

Last update: 27 September 2004

During its routine operational phase, which lasted from February 1996 to April 1998 when the on-board supply of liquid helium coolant was exhausted, ISO made around 30000 individual observations of all classes of astronomical objects at wavelengths from 2-240 µm with imaging, photometry and spectroscopy at a variety of spatial and spectral resolutions. In the course of the next year, all these data will enter the public domain. Activities to support the world-wide astronomical community in exploiting these data are already underway. This 'post operations' or data exploitation phase is a collaborative effort between 7 centres that were deeply involved in the development and in-orbit use of ISO. The effort is funded through to the end of 2001.

This web page gives a brief outline of:


Objectives:

The goal of the post operations phase is to maximise the scientific return of ISO by facilitating effective and widespread exploitation of data. This will be accomplished by: At end of the post-operations phase (end 2001), it is intended to make available a final archive of data, software and documentation, which will support continued exploitation of the ISO legacy by the astronomical community for at least the following 10 years.
 

Services:

The following main services will be provided to users:


Data Centres:

The seven centres involved in this effort, and their respective responsibilities, are:

All of these centres provide direct support to users and welcome visitors.


Martin Kessler,
ISO Project Scientist.


Main Milestones:

Aug 1998: Formal start of post operations phase.
Aug 1998: All data centres open to receive visitors and give support
Dec 1998: Archive opens on the WWW.

May 1999: Release of ISOCAM pipeline upgrade (OLP 8.0) Jul 1999: Release of archive version 2.0, with improved facilities for expert users Aug 1999: All ISO data in public domain Sep 1999: Release of ISOPHOT and SWS pipeline upgrade (OLP 8.4) Dec 1999: Release of LWS pipeline upgrade (OLP 8.7) Dec 1999: Release of archive version 3.0, with improved links to other archives

Jul 2000: Release of ISOCAM and ISOPHOT pipeline upgrade (OLP 9.0) Nov 2000: Release of SWS and ISOCAM pipeline upgrade (OLP 9.5)

Mar 2001: Release of final pipeline upgrade for all instruments (OLP 10) Nov 2001: Release of final ISO Handbook Autumn 2001: Legacy (final) archive available to community Dec 2001: End of post-operations phase.