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Mission Home

Mission Home This page provides a link to /exosat

Summary of observations

Old URL = http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Exosat/develop/obs.html

Mission Status

EXOSAT ceased operations on 9 April 1986, at the end of its design lifespan. Natural decay of the orbit caused the satellite to enter the atmosphere on 6 May 1986.

Mission Team

Mission Team Instrument Institute Low-Energy Imaging Telescope(LE) Laboratory for Space Research (Leiden) Mullard Space Science Laboratory...

Spacecraft

Spacecraft Exploded view of the EXOSAT satellite showing the scientific instruments and the principal spacecraft subsystems. 3-axis stabilised, 90.6 hr orbit...

Instruments

EXOSAT was the European Space Agency's first three-axis stabilised spacecraft.

Launch and Orbit

Launch and Orbit Launch The EXOSAT satellite was launched on 26 May 1983 from the Vandenberg complex in the USA on a Thor-Delta rocket and put in a highly eccentric orbit (e~ 0.93)...

Query the EXOSAT database

Old URL = http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Exosat/develop/query.html

Extragalactic

Extragalactic Active Galactic Nuclei X-ray observations by EXOSAT shed new light on the compact but intensely powerful sources at the heart of Active Galactic ...

Summary

The European Space Agency's X-ray observatory, EXOSAT, was launched in May 1983. It was actively making observations until April 1986, by which time it had made 1780. At this time, after a failure...

Results from period 1983-1986

Updated old link (http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Exosat/develop/obs.html)

Objectives

Objectives The EXOSAT mission was approved in 1973, when the intention was to use lunar occultation to obtain precise positional information for the relatively small number of X-ray...

Background Science

Background Science The European Space Agency's X-ray observatory EXOSAT was operational between May 1983 and April 1986 and during this time made 1780 observations in the X-ray...

Science Results

Currently, there have been more than 1000 publications of EXOSAT data in leading scientific journals. These include many notable discoveries:

EXOSAT Science Archive

EXOSAT Science Archive This page provides a link to http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/exosat/exosat-science-archive ...

Fact Sheet

The European Space Agency's X-ray Observatory, EXOSAT, was operational from May 1983 to April 1986. During that time, EXOSAT made 1780 observations of a wide variety of objects, including active...

EXOSAT Orbit

Galactic

Diagram of EXOSAT

This is slide 2 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Galactic Plane

This is slide 5 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

M31 in X-rays

This is slide 6 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

X-ray Spectrum from Cas A

This is slide 10 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Supernova Remnants

This is slide 8 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

X-ray Burst Source

This is slide 15 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Crab Nebula & Pulsar

This is slide 9 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Light Curve and Power Spectra of GX 5-1

This is slide 12 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Power Spectra of Cyg X-2

This is slide 14 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

EXOSAT Control Room

This is slide 3 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet Fast Facts EXOSAT Launch date: 26-May-1983 15:18 UT Mission end: ...

EXOSAT Observatory

This is slide 1 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

RSS feed

RSS feed This page provides a link to /rss

EXOSAT

2-6 keV emission from galactic plane

This is slide 4 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

Supernova Remnants

This is slide 7 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

X-ray Spectra from GX 5-1

Spectrum of Supernova Remnant W49 B

This is slide 11 of 60 from the EXOSAT slide set. The following caption is the one originally provided with the slide set.

The Instruments

The instruments onboard Exosat included two low energy telescopes, the medium energy proportional counterand a gas scintillation proportional counter.