Abstract
WISE is a NASA MIDEX mission to survey the entire sky in four bands from 3 to 25 microns with sensitivity about
500 times greater than the IRAS survey. WISE will find the most luminous galaxies in the universe, find the closest
stars to the Sun, and detect most of the main belt asteroids larger than 3 km. WISE launch is scheduled in November,
2009 on a Delta 7320-10 to a 525 km Sun-synchronous polar orbit.
This paper gives an overview of WISE including development status and management approach. WISE flight system
design is single string with selected redundancy and graceful degradation. Wherever possible, design heritage from
prior missions is pursued and properly reviewed to reduce development time and cost. Further risk reduction is
achieved since the WISE spacecraft has no deployable mechanisms and no propulsion. Nonetheless, a complex space
mission with a sophisticated cryogenic IR telescope such as WISE demands a partnership of multiple organizations
in government research, academia, and industry. With a cost cap and relatively short development schedule, it is
essential for all WISE partners to work seamlessly together. This is accomplished by a single management team
representing all key partners and disciplines in science, systems engineering, mission assurance, project and contract
management. WISE uses a variety of management tools including frequent team interaction, schedule, milestone and
critical path analysis, risk analysis, reliability analysis, earned value analysis, configuration management, and
management of schedule and budget reserves. After a successful mission critical design review in June, 2007, WISE
has completed building most of the flight hardware, and started integration and test within payload and spacecraft.
