A NASA spacecraft for infrared astronomy, the last in the series of Great Observatories. It was launched in 2003 August under the name Space Infrared Telescope Facility but in 2003 December was renamed in honour of Lyman Spitzer Jr. It carries an infrared telescope with a 0.85-m mirror. The Infrared Array Camera, IRAC, images the sky between 3.6 and 8 μm; the Infrared Spectrograph, IRS, takes spectra at 5–38 μm; and the Multiband Imaging Photometer, MIPS, provides far-infrared imaging and photometry in the 24–160 μm range. The Spitzer Space Telescope trails the Earth in its orbit, away from the heat radiated by our planet.
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/ Official mission website.