The road to launch and operations of the Spitzer Space Telescope

Abstract

This paper describes how the project was able to overcome these stumbling blocks along with changes in philosophies, experiences, and lessons learned. It will describe how projects must invest early or else heavily later in the development phase to achieve a successful operations phase. The result for the Spitzer Space Telescope was a successful launch of the observatory followed by an extremely successful In Orbit Checkout/Science Verification phase and a subsequent successful operational phase.