Article Posted on : - Feb 05, 2009

ISRO image of ASTROSAT

LONDON (BNS): Inspection and testing work is on Astrosat, India’s first national astronomy satellite scheduled for launch in 2009.

A team of engineers from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, led by Sangam Sinha, Chief Engineer, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, are at the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre with regard to the work. The team is working on the next phase of the mission, where hardware is being inspected, tested and assembled into a space qualified X-ray camera.

Guy Peters, Astrosat SXT Project Manager UK, said that in several months, when the camera has been assembled and the Leicester built detector assembly and control electronics installed, it will be tested to space qualified standards and shipped back to India for integration into the spacecraft.

Sangam Sinha from TIFR said that the Astrosat is critical to the Indian space programme as it is the first satellite entirely dedicated to the pursuit of science. “Astrosat also forms the beginning of long term collaboration between TIFR and the University of Leicester through which it is hoped that many more missions will be undertaken jointly by the Indian and UK teams,” Sinha said.

Astrosat will carry five instruments to observe exotic objects such as black holes, neutron stars, and active galaxies at a number of different wavelengths simultaneously, from the ultraviolet band to energetic x-rays.

The camera was designed by the University of Leicester and the manufacture of the hardware components was undertaken by the TIFR. In addition to the manufacture of the camera hardware, the TIFR has built the main telescope body and mirror. The University of Leicester is to assemble the camera, support the project through consultancy and calibrate the camera at the Space Research Centre.

The University of Leicester Space Research Centre was asked to undertake the SXT camera development because of its track record in spacecraft design, in missions such as Swift and XMM-Newton and the experience gained from its CCD laboratory programmes.