PACS, the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer, is one of the three instruments onboard the Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Space Observatory HERSCHEL (former FIRST), a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency (ESA). The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy is part of a scientific consortium of fourteen institutes from six European countries, responsible for building, testing and operating the PACS instrument.
HERSCHEL will be launched together with the PLANCK satellite by a European ARIANE 5 rocket on May 14th 2009. While the two other HERSCHEL-instruments (SPIRE and HIFI) are sensitive in the wavelength range between 200 and 700 microns, PACS covers 3 bands in the 60–210 microns range of the Far-Infrared.
HERSCHEL, the Far-Infrared and Submillimeter Space Observatory has a 3.5 m primary mirror radiation cooled to ~80K. The satellite will be placed in the Lagrange Point L2 (in a distance of 1.5 Mio km from earth in the anti-solar direction).
To get more informationen visit the instituts homepage about PACS.