England's University of Leicester Space Research Centre and ISRO are collaborating on an X-ray camera for Astrosat, India's first astronomy satellite. Technicians at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, have sent instrumentation to Leicester for integration into the camera.
The university, in turn, is providing expertise and support to build the CCD camera, which eventually will be returned to India for installation on the satellite's Soft X-ray Telescope.
In all, Astrosat's five instruments will be designed to observe exotic objects and phenomena such as black holes, neutron stars and active galaxies at a number of different wavelengths simultaneously, from ultraviolet to energetic X-rays.
"Each of Astrosat's five instruments is looking at different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, which allows simultaneous measurements to be taken across a wide range of energies," said Guy Peters, Astrosat project manager at the university's Space Research Centre.
ISRO approached the SRC to undertake the SXT camera development because of the its track record in spacecraft design in space missions such as Swift and XMM-Newton, and its experience in designing CCD cameras with high resolution and sensitivity and low mass.
The Tata Institute has built the main telescope body and mirror, while the SRC has provided the camera, supported the project through consultancy and will calibrate and integrate the instrument.
Due to be launched in 2008, Astrosat is well through its development phase and has just completed its preliminary design review. Over the next eight months, the mission team will finalize the details and seek funding from the British Council to enable it to continue operations after the satellite's launch.
