Spartan 1 was the first in NASA’s Spartan program based on the idea of a simple, low-cost platform deployed from a space shuttle in orbit for a 2–3 day flight, then recovered and returned to Earth. The platform allows the experiments to get out of the complex shuttle environment and frees it of any shuttle pointing constraints.
Spartan 1 was deployed from the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-51G) on 20 June 1985 and retrieved 45.5 hours later.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime
20–22 Jun 1985
Special Features
Free flying instrument released from Space Shuttle and recovered a day and a half later
Lifetime
20–22 Jun 1985
Special Features
Free flying instrument released from Space Shuttle and recovered a day and a half later
Payload
Instrument
Characteristic
Details
Spartan 1 X-ray Detectors
Energy Range
1–12 keV
Effective Area
∼660 cm2 each (2 GSPCs)
Field of View
5′ × 3° collimators
Energy Resolution
16% at 6 keV
Time Resolution
0.812 s
The X-ray detectors aboard the Spartan platform scanned targets with narrowly collimated gas scintillation proportional counters. There were 2 identical sets of counters. Counts were accumulated for 0.812 s into 128 energy channels.
Spartan 1 X-ray Detectors
Energy Range
1–12 keV
Effective Area
∼660 cm2 each (2 GSPCs)
Field of View
5′ × 3° collimators
Energy Resolution
16% at 6 keV
Time Resolution
0.812 s
The X-ray detectors aboard the Spartan platform scanned targets with narrowly collimated gas scintillation proportional counters. There were 2 identical sets of counters. Counts were accumulated for 0.812 s into 128 energy channels.
Science Highlights
Observed the Perseus cluster of galaxies and galactic center region.
