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Prognoz 2

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• Mission Overview
• Instrumentation

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Mission Overview

Prognoz 2 was launched on 29 June 1972. It was put into a highly elliptical orbit with apogee 200,000 km, perigee 550 km, and inclination 65 degrees. It carried the first instrument package, SIGNE 1, resulting from the Franco-Soviet SIGNE collaboration. This instrument was intended to perform solar radiation studies. However, it detected cosmic gamma-ray bursts as well as solar events.

Prognoz 2 reentered the atmosphere on 15 December 1982.

Instrumentation

The SIGNE 1 detector consisted of a Stilbene scintillator, 38.1 mm in diameter and 38.1 mm high. It was shielded by a plastic anticoincidence scintillator. There were 8 energy channels: 0.4-0.7 MeV, 0.7-1.0 MeV, 1-1.6 MeV, 1.6-2.4 MeV, 2.4-2.9 MeV, 2.9-3.9 MeV, 3.9-8.1 MeV, and 8.1-11.8 MeV. Counts were integrated for every 41 or 160 seconds, depending on the experiment mode. The effective area was 17.1 cm².

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