Title: "Herschel Mission Overview"

Speaker: Dr. Stephan Ott
Herschel Science Data Processing Development Manager
European Space Agency

Abstract:
The Herschel Space Observatory is the next observatory mission
in the European Space Agency (ESA) science programme. It will
perform imaging photometry and spectroscopy in the far infrared
and submillimetre part of the spectrum, covering approximately
the 55-672 micron range.

Herschel will carry a 3.5 metre diameter passively cooled
telescope. The science payload complement - two cameras/medium
resolution spectrometers (PACS and SPIRE) and a very high
resolution heterodyne spectrometer (HIFI) - will be housed
in a superfluid helium cryostat. The HIFI instrument is using
superconducting SIS and HEB mixers, and both AOS and auto-correlator
spectrometers. The ground segment will be jointly developed by
the ESA, the three instrument teams, and NASA/IPAC.

Once operational in orbit around L2 after a launch in 2008 and
followed by an early operations period of 6 months, Herschel will
offer a minimum of 3 years of routine science observations. The key
science objectives emphasize current questions connected to the
formation and evolution of galaxies, stars and stellar systems,
including our own planetary system. Nominally ~20,000 hours will
be available for astronomy, 32% is guaranteed time and the remainder
is open to the general astronomical community through a standard
competitive proposal procedure.

The Key Programme AO was issued in Feb 2007, and both the guaranteed
and open time accepted Key Programmes will be discussed, as well as
future observing opportunities.

The development of the Herschel Data Processing System started six
years ago to support the data analysis for Instrument Level Tests.
To fulfil the expectations of the astronomical community, additional
resources were made available to implement a freely distributable
user-friendly Data Processing System capable to interactively and
automatically reduce Herschel data at different processing levels.
We will summarise the current state of the Herschel Data Processing
System.