Exploring the Universe with the IUE Satellite (Astrophysics and Space Science Library, 129)

This book was conceived to commemorate the continuing success of the guest observer program for the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite observatory. It is also hoped that this volume will serve as a useful tutorial for those pursuing research in related fields with future space observatories. As the IUE has been the product of the three-way collaboration between the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and the British Engineering and Research Council (SERC), so is this book the fruit of the collaboration of the American and European participants in the IUE. As such, it is a testimony to timely international cooperation and sharing of resources that open up new possibilities. The IUE spacecraft was launched on the 26th of January in 1978 into a geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean. The scientific operations of the IUE are performed for 16 hours a day from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, U.S.A, and for 8 hours a day from ESA Villafranca Satellite Tracking Station near Madrid, Spain.