NASA and JAXA's new satellite, dubbed X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), is set to launch in August. It will analyze X-rays using the widest field-of-view instrument designed for such imaging probes.
NASA and JAXA's XRISM Satellite
XRISM will "pry apart high-energy light into the equivalent of an X-ray rainbow," according to NASA in a new statement. XRISM is scheduled to launch from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center aboard the JAXA H-IIA rocket on Aug. 25 (Aug 26, Japan time zone). The exact time of day has not yet been announced.
Leading XRISM is JAXA, with NASA's assistance and scientific input from the European and Canadian space agencies. According to Brian Williams, an XRISM project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the mission will give them insights into some of the most challenging areas to investigate, such as the interiors of neutron stars and the near-light-speed particle jets generated by black holes in active galaxies.
The satellite will use A pair of instruments to examine significant cosmic occurrences. Examples include how matter responds to extreme gravity, neutron star emissions from dense star cores the size of cities, far-off particle jets, and black hole rotations, Space.com reported.
Resolve is the name of the first X-ray spectrometer aboard XRISM. Each of the 6-by-6-pixel detector's pixels in Resolve can absorb a single X-ray photon. Resolve can catalog up to millions of measurements in ultra-high resolution because of the instrument's accuracy.
To complete its task, the instrument must be refrigerated to extremely low temperatures close to zero. The instrument Resolve is housed in a special flask (a dewar) filled with liquid helium, which cools it to about -460 degrees Fahrenheit (-270 degrees Celsius).
Resolve will come with a free tool called Xtend that will increase its field of view. Resolve can take pictures in a region of the sky that is nearly 60% larger than a full moon and wider than any previous X-ray imaging satellite, thanks to Xtend.
Both Resolve and Extend will use the Twin X-ray mirror assembly built at Goddard, a neighboring Baltimore facility.
More About XRISM
The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), originally known as XARM, is a joint JAXA/NASA mission with involvement from the European Space Agency. The mission's goal is to use high-throughput imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy to examine astronomical X-ray objects in the cosmos.
Two instruments make up the XRISM payload - Resolve and Xtend.
Resolve is a soft X-ray spectrometer with a field of view of roughly three arcmin's that offers non-dispersive 5-7 eV energy resolution in the 0.3-12 keV bandpass using a lightweight X-ray Mirror Assembly (XMA) coupled with an X-ray calorimeter spectrometer.
Xtend, a soft X-ray imager, uses an analogous lightweight X-ray Mirror Assembly to expand the observatory's field of view to 38 arcmin on a side throughout the energy range of 0.4-13 keV.
They have similarities with the SXS and SXI flown on Hitomi, respectively. XRISM is intended to pick up where Hitomi left off and restore the majority of the science capabilities, concentrating primarily on the soft X-ray bands. (XRISM does not contain analogs for Hitomi's high-energy instruments, HXI and SGD.)
With the X-ray Mirror Assemblies, NASA/GSFC develops the Resolve detection system and several components. The Science Data Center, which creates the analysis software for all instruments and the data processing pipeline, in addition to assisting with Guest Observers and the XRISM Guest Observer (GO) Program, is under the control of NASA/GSFC.
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