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Compton Gamma Ray Observatory ○˒｜Definition｜1st｜20260628123146-00-⌔
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory - Wikipedia
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) was a space observatory detecting photons with energies from 20 k eV to 30 GeV, in Earth orbit from 1991 to 2000. The observatory featured four main telescopes in one spacecraft, covering X-rays and gamma rays, including various specialized sub-instruments and detectors. Following 14 years of effort, the observatory was launched from Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-37 on April 5, 1991, and operated until its deorbit on June 4, 2000.1 It was deployed in low Earth orbit at 450 km (280 mi) to avoid the Van Allen radiation belt. It was the heaviest astrophysical payload ever flown at that time at 16,300 kilograms (35,900 lb).
Costing $617 million,2 the CGRO was part of NASA’s Great Observatories series, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.3 It was the second of the series to be launched into space, following the Hubble Space Telescope. The CGRO was named after Arthur Compton, an American physicist and former chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis who received the Nobel Prize for work involved with gamma-ray physics. CGRO was built by TRW (now Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems) in Redondo Beach, California. CGRO was an international collaboration and additional contributions came from the European Space Agency and various universities, as well as the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
Successors to CGRO include the ESA INTEGRAL spacecraft (2002-2025), NASA Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission (launched 2004), ASI AGILE (2007-2024) and NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (launched 2008); Swift and Fermi remain operational as of August 2025.
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
“Gamma-Ray Astronomy in the Compton Era: The Instruments”. Gamma-Ray Astronomy in the Compton Era. NASA/GSFC. Archived from the original on 2009-02-24. Retrieved 2007-12-07. ↩
“Spaceflight Now | CGRO Deorbit | NASA space telescope heads for fiery crash into Pacific”. spaceflightnow.com. ↩
Barry Logan: MSFC, Kathy Forsythe: MSFC. “NASA – NASA’s Great Observatories”. www.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 2011-08-20. Retrieved 2020-11-02. ↩
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