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Astro-E
STRO-E was to be the Japan's fifth X-ray astronomy
mission, but was unfortunately lost during launch (10 Feb 2000).
Astro-E was developed at the Japanese
Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) in collaboration
with the US and Japanese institutions.
Astro-E was to carry, among other instruments, a new type
of X-ray spectrometer, the X-ray micro-calorimeter, which provides an
unprecedented energy resolution compared to non-dispersive instruments.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime :
Lost on launch in Feb 2000
Energy Range : 0.4-700 keV
Special Features
: First X-ray micro-calorimeter in space
Payload :
- Five nested conical thin-foil grazing incidence telescopes (XRT),
with a spatial resolution of < 1.5´. Four telescopes
were gold-coated (XRT-I) and one was platinum-coated (XRT-S).
At the focus of each telescope there was one of the following detectors :
- X-ray Spectrometer (XRS; 0.4-10 keV; one unit)
X-ray micro-calorimeter composed of 32 pixels
at the focus of the XRT-S.
Energy resolution ~12 eV at 6 keV.
FOV 2´ X 4´
- X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS; 0.4-10 keV; four units)
Each unit was a 1024 X 1024 pixel CCD detector
at the focus of one XRT-I.
FOV 19´ X 19´, eff. area per each 300 cm<2 @
1 keV, energy resolution 130 eV (E/6keV)1/2
- Hard X-ray Detector (HXD; 10-700 keV)
GSO Phoswich counters (> 50 keV) & silicon PIN diodes (< 50 keV)
FOV 0.8° @60keV and 2.8° @500keV
eff. area (<40 keV) 230 cm2 (<40 keV) ,
330cm
2
(> 40 keV)
energy resolution 3 keV @ 10 keV, 9% @ 662 keV
[Astro-E Guest Observer Facility] (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/astroe/astroegof.html)
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