AstroSat : Completed A Decade
India’s first dedicated Space Astronomy Observatory, AstroSat completed a decade of operations.
- AstroSat is the first dedicated Indian astronomy mission.
- It was launched by PSLV-C30 (XL) rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on September 28, 2015.
- The minimum useful life of the AstroSat mission was around 5 years but still it is providing valuable information.
- It was designed to observe the universe in the Visible, Ultraviolet, low and high energy X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum simultaneously with the help of its five payloads.
- Payloads of Astrosat: Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT), Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC), Cadmium–Zinc–Telluride Imager (CZTI), Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) and Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM).
- Objectives of Astrosat
- To understand high energy processes in binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes.
- Estimate magnetic fields of neutron stars.
- Study high energy processes in star systems lying beyond our galaxy.
- Detect new briefly bright X-ray sources in the sky.
- Perform a limited deep field survey of the Universe in the Ultraviolet region.
- The spacecraft control center at Mission Operations Complex (MOX) of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, manages the satellite during its entire mission life.
