Japan's Meteorological Satellite ASTRO-H to Launch Feb.17

ASTRO-H is Japan's new orbiting astronomical observatory built by an international collaboration led by JAXA with over 70 contributing institutions in Japan, the US, Canada and Europe. After a week's delay, it is to launch onboard #30H2A Rocket at 17:45, at Tanegashima Space Center, February 17, onto an orbit 675 kilometers above the earth's surface.

ASTRO-H is an X-ray meteorological satellite mounts a microcalorimeter to diffract x-rays from space and three detectors to collect data over a wide range of wave lengths both soft X-rays and soft γ‐rays. Some 46 ft. in length when the telescope is extended, the sattellite is by far the heaviest Japanese astronomy mission with a mass of 5,300 lb.

X-ray astronomy is a relatively new area of study. In 1962, Ricardo Giacconi, Bruno Rossi and others caught X-rays from outside the Solar system from rocket-borne detectors in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was in 1970's onwards the study gained momentum as scientific satellites were launched with X-ray observation instruments.

Japan has led X-ray astronomy since its dawning days and launched 5 X-ray astronomy missions- Tenma, Ginza, Asuka, and Suzaku.

Beside a soft X-ray image detector, ASTRO-H brings a hard X-ray image detector to catch images in higher bandpass areas. Though identical to X-ray CCD in principle, this device adopts a compound called cadmium telluride to broadens the area for the observation of frequencies 10 times of X-ray in energy. The Hard X-ray Imager performs sensitive imaging spectroscopy in the 5-80 keV band; the non-imaging Soft γ-ray Detector extends Astro-H's energy band to 300 keV; and the Soft X-ray Imager expands the field of view with a new generation CCD camera in the energy range of 0.5-12 keV.