posted 06-09-2017 08:09 AM               

We are pleased to announce the publication of Renee Rottner's "Making the Invisible Visible: A History of the Spitzer Infrared Telescope Facility (1971-2003)" (Monograph in Aerospace History No. 47). Free hard copies are available by contacting the NASA Information Center (202-358-0000) and three e-book versions, including pdf, are available online.

In the early 1970s, there was a small group of advocates for an infrared space telescope; however, the eld of infrared astronomy was only a few years old, and no one had ever built a space-based observatory of the required complexity. Considering the technical, political, scienti c, and economic uncertainties, it was not obvious that a project like SIRTF could — or should — be dared by NASA.

How did SIRTF manage to overcome these uncertainties? This monograph makes visible the invisible forces that in uenced the design of SIRTF's innovative technology. The lessons learned by the project team over the course of building SIRTF, now better known as the Spitzer Space Telescope, are about managing innovation over time and in the face
of uncertainty.

• Hardcover, 196 pages
  
• NASA SP-2017-4547 (June 7, 2017)
  
• ISBN 9781626830363