Broad Band X-ray Telescope
Broad Band X-ray Telescope (BBXRT) was an X-ray telescope that operated during a 1990 flight of the Space Shuttle .
BBXRT consisted of two identically aligned telescopes with a focal length of 3.8 m and a diameter of 40 cm, which were movably mounted on a common mount in the cargo bay of the space shuttle. Telescopes and instruments were led by the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA developed. An important new feature was the use of cooled Si: Li semiconductor detectors, with which a relatively good energy resolution of around 90–150 eV could be achieved over the wide energy range 0.3–12 keV .
BBXRT was on the STS-35 mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia from December 2 to December 11, 1990 in Earth orbit as part of the ASTRO-1 payload. The tracking of celestial objects from the space shuttle turned out to be less efficient than planned, but good data was obtained with a total of 157 observations from 82 cosmic X-ray sources.
Because of the improved energy resolution compared to earlier X-ray telescopes, the most important results of BBXRT arose from the spectroscopy of X-ray binary stars , active galactic nuclei , galaxy clusters and supernova remnants .
BBXRT was originally planned along with the Diffuse X-ray Spectrometer , or DXS, as a standalone SHEAL II shuttle payload. The DXS, the second component of this Shuttle High-Energy Astrophysics Laboratory, ultimately flew as a secondary payload on STS-54.
Web links
- BBXRT page of the NASA (English)