4 - Major X-ray satellites

Summary

Tables A4.1, A4.2, and A4.3 list major X-ray satellites in order of their launch date along with some basic parameters about each. Table A4.1 includes all missions completed by 1980, and provides basic information about each including the detectors, energy bandpass, peak effective area, and FOV. None of these missions used focusing X-ray optics, relying instead upon collimators to select sources in a limited FOV.

Table A4.2 lists missions launched between 1980 and 1996 which are no longer operating, while Table A4.3 gives parameters for missions launched since 1996, which are still returning data as of 2010. Many of the missions in Tables A4.2 and A4.3 used X-ray optics and so more information is provided including the PSF and detector spectral resolution.

Our primary source for this information, especially for the Uhuru, ANS, Ariel-V, SAS-3, OSO-8, HEAO-1, the Einstein Observatory, EXOSAT, ASCA, RXTE, Swift, and Suzaku missions, was the HEASARC list of observatories. In addition, the National Space Science Data Center spacecraft website was invaluable. Both sites contain a large number of original source references. Information was also taken from the HEASARC calibration database CALDB in order to determine the peak effective area and spectral resolution. For the ROSAT HRI, some information also came from the SAO ROSAT site. Specifications for Chandra, XMM–Newton and MAXI came from their websites. Other sources are given in footnotes to the tables.