nasa'nın wmap olarak bilinen, wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe'u evrenin geçmiş dönemlerindeki radyasyon seviyesini ölçmek, büyük patlama'dan bu yana uzaya yayılmış radyoaktif ısı farklılıklarının ölçmek amacıyla 30 haziran 2001 günü uzayın derinliklerine yollanan ölçüm aracı. 2010'da görevi sona erdi.
The WMAP mission was proposed to NASA in 1995, launched in 2001, and operations were completed in 2010. The Spacecraft was launched June 30, 2001 on a Med-Lite Delta II 7425-10 vehicle into a lunar assisted trajectory to the Sun-Earth L2 libration point for a nominal 27 month mission (3 months transit to L2, 24 months observing). The mission was subsequently extended to collect additional flight data. The total payload mass is ~830 kg. The WMAP instrument is continuously shaded from the Sun, Earth, and Moon by the spacecraft to allow lower thermal disturbances. WMAP ended the collection of science data on August 19th 2010.
[yardımcı kaynak-> nasa]