Astronomical Nederlandse Satelliet

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Astronomical Nederlandse Satelliet
Astronomical Nederlandse Satelliet
Type: Space telescope
Country: NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands
Operator: NIVR
COSPAR-ID : 1974-070A
Mission dates
Dimensions: 129 kg
Begin: August 30, 1974, 14:07 UTC
Starting place: Vandenberg Air Force Base SLC 5th
Launcher: Scout D1
Status: burned up on June 14, 1977
Orbit data
Rotation time : 99.1 min
Orbit inclination : 98 °
Apogee height :  1173 km
Perigee height :  258 km

The Astronomische Nederlandse Satelliet (ANS) was the first major Dutch space project, a space telescope for ultraviolet astronomy and X-ray astronomy .

ANS was placed in low-Earth orbit on August 30, 1974 from Vandenberg Air Force Base with a scout missile . It re-entered the earth's atmosphere on June 14, 1977.

ANS was a joint project of the Dutch NIVR and the US NASA . The scientific instruments were:

  • an ultraviolet telescope with a mirror diameter of 22 cm with a spectrophotometer for the wavelength range 150-330  nm , a development by the University of Groningen
  • an experiment for the soft X-ray range (0.16–0.28 and 0.3–7  keV ), a development by the University of Utrecht
  • an American experiment for the hard X-ray range (1-30 keV).

Among other things, ANS discovered X-ray emissions for the first time from the corona of a star other than the sun, the star Capella . X- ray bursts and X-ray flares from the variable stars UV Ceti and YZ CMi.

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