XPOSAT
- SCI & TECH
News: Explained | What ISRO's XPoSat mission is
all about
What's
in the news?
●
The Indian
Space Research Organisation, following a landmark 2023, will ring in the
new year with the launch of the PSLV-C58 X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat)
mission on January 1, 2024.
Key
takeaways:
●
XPoSat
(X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) is India’s first dedicated polarimetry mission to
study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme
conditions.
●
ISRO’s
PSLV-C58 Mission is to launch XPoSAT Satellite into an
Eastward low inclination orbit.
●
After injection of XPoSAT, the PS4 stage will be re-started twice to
reduce the orbit into a 350 km circular orbit to maintain in 3-axis stabilized
mode for Orbital Platform experiments.
●
The PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3
experiment will be executed meeting the objective of 10 identified payloads,
supplied by ISRO and IN-SPACe.
XPoSat:
●
XPoSat stands for X-ray Polarimeter
Satellite.
●
XPoSat is a collaboration between the ISRO
and the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, Karnataka.
●
XPoSat is only the world’s second
polarimetry mission using X-Ray after NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer
(IXPE) that was launched in 2021.
●
The
spacecraft will carry two scientific payloads in a low earth orbit:
1.
POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays)
2.
XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing)
●
POLIX
is an X-ray Polarimeter for astronomical observations in the energy band of
8-30 keV.
○
The payload is being developed by Ramam
Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore in collaboration with U R Rao Satellite
Centre (URSC).
●
XSPECT
is an X-ray SPECtroscopy and Timing payload onboard XPoSat, which can provide
fast timing and good spectroscopic resolution in soft X-rays.
Significance
of XPoSat:
●
The emission mechanism from various astronomical sources such as black holes, neutron stars, active galactic
nuclei, pulsar wind nebulae etc. originates from complex physical processes
and are challenging to understand.
●
While the spectroscopic and timing
information by various space based observatories provide a wealth of
information, the exact nature of the
emission from such sources still poses deeper challenges to astronomers.
●
The polarimetry measurements add two more
dimensions to our understanding, the degree of polarization and the angle of
polarization and thus is an excellent diagnostic tool to understand the
emission processes from astronomical sources.
●
The polarimetric observations along with
spectroscopic measurements are expected to break the degeneracy of various
theoretical models of astronomical emission processes.