NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope finally ceased all science operations after more than 16 years'operation, with 5 times of mission extensions. Significant discoveries were made in many fields, such as studying the universe in the infrared light, revealing new wonders in our solar system, our galaxy, and beyond, as well as detecting exoplanets and characterizing their atmospheres. More than 9000 scientific papers were published based on its scientific data. A novel Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit was chosen, with the then state-of-the-art, large-format infrared detector arrays in the design of the Spitzer. The mission adjusted its scientific objectives as soon as the exoplanets became a new hot spot of the space astronomy observation after its launch. Scientific observations were made for another 10 years after its cryogenic main mission with the only one payload left among the three focal plane scientific instruments aboard, i.e. the two shortest wavelength bands, at 3.6 and 4.5 microns of the 4 channel infrared array camera. For a sustainable progress of China's space science missions, it is beneficial to learn from the Spitzer mission's practices such as the open technology innovation, the adjustment of the scientific goal with the times, and the collaborative integrated observation with other ground or space astronomical telescopes.

Spitzer Space Telescope  /  infrared astronomy  /  space science  /  scientific output maximization