X-ray telescopes X-ray telescopes The first of NASA's three High Energy Astronomy Observatories, HEAO 1 was launched aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket on 12 August 1977 and operated until 9 January 1979. During that time, it scanned the X-ray sky almost three times over 0.2 keV - 10 MeV, provided nearly constant monitoring of X-ray sources near the ecliptic poles, as well as more detailed studies of a number of objects through pointed observations. ...more on Wikipedia about "1st High Energy Astrophysics Observatory"
ASCA (formerly named Astro-D) is Japan's fourth cosmic X-ray astronomy mission, and the second for which the United States is providing part of the scientific payload. The satellite was successfully launched February 20, 1993. ...more on Wikipedia about "Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics"
The Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors (ALEXIS) X-ray telescopes feature curved mirrors whose multilayer coatings reflect and focus low-energy X-rays or extreme ultraviolet light the way optical telescopes focus visible light. The satellite and payloads were funded by the Department of Energy and built by Los Alamos National Laboratory in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories and the University of California-Space Sciences Lab. The Launch was provided by the Air Force Space Test Program on a Pegasus Booster on April 25, 1993. The mission is entirely controlled from a small groundstation at LANL. ...more on Wikipedia about "Array of Low Energy X-ray Imaging Sensors"
ASTRO-E and ASTRO-EII (or Astro-E2) are Japanese X-ray astronomy satellites built primarily by JAXA. In 2000 the Astro-E launch failed (with the satellite falling into the ocean), so a replacement called Astro-EII was launched on July 10, 2005. Astro-EII has high spectroscopic resolution together with a very wide energy band, ranging from soft X-rays up to gamma-rays (0.3--600 keV). High resolution spectroscopy and wide-band are essential factors to physically investigate high energy astronomical phenomena, such as black holes and supernovae. After a successful launch, ASTRO-EII was nicknamed Suzaku which means "red bird of the south." ...more on Wikipedia about "ASTRO-E"
The Broad Band X-ray Telescope (BBXRT) was flown on the space shuttle Columbia ( STS-35) on 1990 December 2- December 11, as part of the ASTRO-1 payload. The flight of BBXRT marked the first opportunity for performing X-ray observations over a broad energy range (0.3-12 keV) with a moderate energy resolution (typically 90 eV and 150 eV at 1 and 6 keV, respectively). ...more on Wikipedia about "Broad Band X-ray Telescope"
Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite launched on STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. It was named in honor of Indian- American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who is known for determining the mass limit for white dwarf stars to become neutron stars. " Chandra" also means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit. ...more on Wikipedia about "Chandra X-ray Observatory"
Constellation-X, the Constellation X-ray Mission (formerly HTXS, the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy program) is a Next Generation X-ray Observatory dedicated to observations at high spectral resolution, providing as much as a factor of 100 increase in sensitivity over currently planned high resolution X-ray spectroscopy missions. ...more on Wikipedia about "Constellation-X"
Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) was the first fully imaging X-ray telescope put into space and the second of NASA's three High Energy Astrophysical Observatories. The observatory was named in honor of Albert Einstein. ...more on Wikipedia about "Einstein Observatory"
The Exosat satellite was operational from May 1983 until April 1986 and in that time made 1780 observations in the X-ray band of most classes of astronomical object including active galactic nuclei, stellar coronae, cataclysmic variables, white dwarfs, X-ray binaries, clusters of galaxies, and supernova remnants. The payload consisted of three instruments that produced spectra, images and light curves in various energy bands. ...more on Wikipedia about "EXOSAT"
Astro-C, renamed Ginga (Japanese for 'galaxy'), was launched from the Kagoshima Space Center on 5 February, 1987. The primary instrument for observations was the Large Area Counter (LAC). Ginga was the third Japanese X-ray astronomy mission, following Hakucho and Tenma. Ginga reentered the Earth's atmosphere on 1 November, 1991. ...more on Wikipedia about "Ginga"
The High Energy Transient Explorer (abbreviated HETE) is an American astronomical satellite. The prime objective of HETE is to carry out the first multiwavelength study of gamma-ray bursts with UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray instruments mounted on a single, compact spacecraft. A unique feature of the HETE mission is its capability to localize GRBs with ~10 arc second accuracy in near real time aboard the spacecraft, and to transmit these positions directly to a network of receivers at existing ground-based observatories enabling rapid, sensitive follow-up studies in the radio, IR, and optical bands. ...more on Wikipedia about "High Energy Transient Explorer"
The Monitoring X-ray Experiment (MOXE) is an X-ray all-sky monitor to be launched on the Russian Spectrum-X-Gamma satellite. It will monitor several hundred X-ray sources on a daily basis, and will be the first instrument to monitor the complete X-ray sky simultaneously. MOXE is built by Los Alamos National Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center and Space Research Institute Moscow. ...more on Wikipedia about "MOXE"
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is a future space-based X-ray telescope such as Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton. It will use grazing incidence mirrors to focus high energy X-rays from astrophysical sources. Its primary goals are to conduct a deep survey for supermassive black holes, study particle acceleration in active galaxies, and measure radioactive isotopes in young supernova remnants in our own Galaxy. NuSTAR is a NASA Small Explorer class mission. The Principal Investigator is Fiona Harrison, of the California Institute of Technology. Other partners include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia University, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the University of California, Santa Cruz, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sonoma State University, and the Danish Space Research Institute. NuSTAR's planned launch date is February 2009. ...more on Wikipedia about "Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array"
ROSAT (short for Röntgensatellit) was a German X-ray satellite telescope. It was launched on June 1 1990 with a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, and operated until February 12 1999. ...more on Wikipedia about "ROSAT"
The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite observes the fast-moving, high-energy worlds of black holes, neutron stars, X-ray pulsars and bursts of X-rays that light up the sky and then disappear forever. ...more on Wikipedia about "Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer"
Spectrum-X-Gamma (SXG) is an international high-energy astrophysics observatory which is being built under the leadership of the Russian Space Research Institute (IKI). Spectrum-X Gamma instrumentation includes 5 telescopes spanning the energy range from the far ultraviolet to the hard X-ray, plus an all-sky monitor. ...more on Wikipedia about "Spectrum-X-Gamma"
The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of an unmanned spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on November 20, 2004, at 17:16:00 UTC (12:16 PM, EST) on top of a Delta 2 rocket. It is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. ...more on Wikipedia about "Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission"
Uhuru was the first satellite launched specifically for the purpose of X-ray astronomy. ...more on Wikipedia about "Uhuru"
The XMM-Newton (X-ray Multi-Mirror Newton) is an orbiting X-ray observatory, named in honour of Isaac Newton. ...more on Wikipedia about "XMM-Newton"
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