MAXI

The Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) is the first experiment to be installed on the Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility (JEM-EF or Kibo-EF) on the International Space Station (ISS), and the first high energy astrophysical experiment placed on the space station. MAXI was launched with the Kibo Exposed Facility on the space shuttle Endeavour (STS-127) on July 15, 2009 and delivered to the ISS. MAXI started observations in August 2009 and was originally intended for a two year operations period, but they were extended and approved through March 2021.

Mission Characteristics

Lifetime

Energy Range

Special Features

Payload :

• Gas Slit Cameras (GSC) consist of 12 xeon-filled proportional gas counters sensitive to 2–30 keV energy range.
  Slit collimators give the GSC a 1.5° x 160° wide field of view in each of the horizontal and zenithal directions
• Solid-state Slit Cameras (SSC) consist of one dimensional position sensitive X-ray detector (CCDs) sensitive to 0.5–12 keV energy range. The collimating slit aperature providing a narrow field of view (1.5° by 80°) in the horizontal (ISS forward motion) and vertical (zenithal) directions.

MAXI includes also a Radiation Belt Monitor to monitor radiation events

Science Highlights

• Monitoring of a variety of variable and transient X-ray sources
• Rapid locating of burst events such as novae, supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts found initially by other observatories, refining their sky locations more precisely.
• Discovery of numerous X-ray transient sources including black hole candidates and new soft gamma-ray burst sources.
• Transient event alerts: alerts to other observatories are distributed within 30 s of detection.

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