Astron (spacecraft)

Astron (spacecraft)

Astron was a Soviet astrophysical spacecraft launched on March 23 1983 at 12:45:06 UTC by Proton launcher. [ [http://planet4589.org/space/log/launchlog.txt Jonathan McDowell's launchlog] ] It was based on Venera spacecraft design. Astron was operational for six years being the largest ultraviolet space telescope of that time.

Astron project was headed by one of the leading scientists in the field of extra-atmospheric astronomy [ru icon [http://www.inasan.rssi.ru/rus/WSO/history.html Spectr-UF Project History] ] - 1984 USSR State Prize laureate, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1987 Alexander Boyarchuk. [ru icon [http://mirslovarei.com/content_bes/Bojarchuk-8125.html Alexander Boyarchuk] ] The spacecraft was designed and constructed by the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and NPO Lavochkin, a group of scientists from these institutions was awarded the USSR State Prize for this. [ru icon [http://www.crimea-portal.gov.ua/index.php?&art=1107 Crimean Astrophysical Observatory] ]

Astron had an 80 cm ultraviolet telescope, designed jointly by the USSR and France, and an X-ray spectroscope onboard. [ [http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/astron.html Astron Mission Profile] at NASA] Being in a high orbit (apogee 185,000 km), it could make observations beyond the Earth's shadow and radiation belt.

Among the most important observations by Astron were those of SN 1987A supernova on March 4-12, 1987 [ [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987PAZh...13..739B Observations on Astron: Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud] .] and of Halley's Comet in December, 1985, that allowed a group of Soviet scientists to develop a model of this comet's coma. [ [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986PAZh...12..696B A model for the coma of Comet Halley, based on the Astron ultraviolet spectrophotometry] ]

ee also

* Granat - A later space observatory based on the Venera spacecraft bus

Bibliography

References


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