ORFEUS, the Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme UV Spectrometer, was a German astronomical satellite. It was deployed by the shuttle remote manipulating system arm and retrieved after six days of free flight. The main instrument was a 1 meter telescope with extreme ultraviolet (400-1150 Angstroms) and far ultraviolet (900-1250 Angstrom) spectrometers of high spectral resolution. Also carried was the Princeton Interstellar Medium Absorption Profile Spectrograph which studied the fine structure of ultraviolet absorption lines in stellar spectra caused by interstellar gas. The ORFEUS program was managed by the German space agency and the Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS) spacecraft bus was made by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm.

Retrieved Dec 4

• 4 - McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Report (Internet Newsletter), Harvard University, Weekly, 1989 to Present. HTML when accessed: ftp://sao-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/jcm/space/news