The Broad Band X-ray Telescope (BBXRT)


artist concept of BBXRT in the Shuttle bay in flight
The Broad Band X-ray Telescope (BBXRT) was flown on the space shuttle Columbia (STS-35) as part of the ASTRO-1 payload. It was designed and built at the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA/GSFC.
BBXRT was the first focusing X-ray telescope operating over a broad energy range 0.3-12 keV with a moderate energy resolution (90 eV at 1 keV and 150eV at 6 keV).

Mission Characteristics

* Lifetime : December 2 1990 - December 11 1990
* Energy Range : 0.3 - 12 keV
* Payload :
    Two Co-Aligned Telescopes each with a segmented Si(Li) solid state
    spectrometer (detector A and B) composite of five pixels.
    Total FOV 17.4 ´ diameter, Central pixel FOV 4 ´ diameter
    Total area 765 cm2 at 1.5 keV, and 300 cm2 at 7 keV
* Science Highlight :
  • Resolved iron K line in the binaries Cen X-3 and Cyg X-2
  • Detect evidence of line broadening in NGC 4151
  • Study of cooling flow in clusters
* Archive : HEASARC hosts Spectra, Lightcurves and Raw data

[BBXRT Home] [About BBXRT] [Archive] [Software] [Gallery] [Publications]

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Page authors: Lorella Angelini Jesse Allen
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Last modified: Thursday, 24-Sep-2020 18:08:15 EDT