In continuation of its stellar space odyssey from the previous year, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite on the first day of the New Year. Among other things, the satellite meant to provide information on space-based polarization measurements of X-ray emission from different celestial sources was launched as planned on Monday at 9.10 am from Sriharikota spaceport.
ISRO’s PSLV-C58 Mission is to launch XPOSAT Satellite into an Eastward low inclination orbit. After injection of XPOSAT, the PS4 stage will be re-started twice to reduce the orbit into 350 km circular orbit to maintain in 3-axis stabilized mode for Orbital Platform (OP) experiments. The PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3 (POEM-3) experiment will be executed meeting the objective of 10 identified payloads, supplied by ISRO and IN-SPACe.
The XPOSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) is India’s first dedicated polarimetry mission to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.
According to ISRO The XPOSAT satellite has two payloads:
POLIX: This will measure the polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarization) in medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV photons of astronomical origin. The payload is being developed by Ramam Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore in collaboration with U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC). The instrument is made of a collimator, a scatterer and four X-ray proportional counter detectors that surrounds the scatterer. The scatterer is made of low atomic mass material which causes anisotropic Thomson scattering of incoming polarised X-rays. The collimator restricts the field of view to 3 degree x 3 degree so as to have only one bright source in the field of view for most observations.