Herschel in the verification phase until october

Herschel was successfully launched together with Planck on 14 May 2009. After a successful Commissioning phase, including cryocover opening one month after launch, the Performance Verification phase commenced in mid-July. The early mission phases includes a commissioning phase of 2 months, together with a performance verification phase of 3 months, followed by a science demonstration phase of one month around october 2009, going into routine science phase about 6 months after launch.

http://herschel.esac.esa.int/latest_news ...