Astro D

Japan

International Sat. n°:

Japanese satellite n°: 68

Also called Asuka or ASCA (Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics)

Launch data:

Designation	22521 / 93011A
Launch date	20 Feb 1993 at 02:00 UT
Launch site	Kagoshima
Launch vehicle	Mu-3S-2
Mission	Scientific:X-ray astronomy
Earth orbit:
Perigee/Apogee	538/645 km
Inclination	31.1°
Period	96.5 min
Mass at launch	420 kg

First truly telescopic telecope in space and first Japanese X-ray imaging telescope (its previous X-ray satellites have carried x-ray detectors without focussing optics).

Specifications

Prime contractor	Nagoya's university and the Goddard Space Flight Center
Operator	ISAS
Platform
Mass at launch	420 kg
Mass in orbit
Dimension	1.2 m diameter x 2.8 m long (4 m deployed)
Solar array
Stabilization
DC power	BOL: 600 W

Is equipped with 4 focal mirrors of 3.5 m and CCD detectors. The sensitiveness should be 100 times greater than HEAO 2. It carries CCD detectors and an imaging proportional counter. The spacecraft is sensitive to the 0.5-12 keV energy range. The Asuka telescope has a 30 arcmin field of view and 2 arcmin spatial resolution.

Telemetry: 2256.22 MHz (playback: 262144 bps, via DSN)

End of life

Out of service	15 Jul 2000
Cause	The solar pannels were not aligned towards the Sun, lost attitude
Decay	02 Mar 2001 - ~05:17 UT

It operated from Feb 1993 to Jul 2000 and made observations of the hard X-ray sky with CCD imagers and a foil-type set of X-ray telescopes.

Ref.: #3(SD344), #7(SR448), #15 - update: 25.01.02

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