Cryogenic Michelson interferometer on the space shuttle

A helium-cooled interferometer was flown aboard shuttle flight STS-39. This interferometer, along with its sister radiometer, set new benchmarks for the quantity and quality of data collected. The interferometer generated approximately 150,000 interferograms during the course of the flight. Data was collected at tangent heights from the earth's surface to celestial targets. The interferograms encoded spectral data from aurora, earth limb, and earth terminator scenes. The interferometer collected data at resolutions of 8, 4, and 1 wavenumbers over a spectral range of 2 to 25 micrometers. The interferometer's optics, detectors and preamps, laser reference system, realignment system, and eight-position optical filter wheel are described as they performed on-orbit.