How do astronomers use space-based telescopes?
Procedures for operating satellite telescopes are somewhat different than traditional ground-based telescope observing runs. Telescopes orbiting in space are operated remotely from control stations on the ground, where specially-trained staff point the telescope at the specific targets requested by the astronomers in their observing proposals. This “queue observing” makes very efficient use of the telescope’s time — several different projects can be done in a single day. Thus many observatories have started using this approach for ground-based telescopes as well.
