Astronomy:MAXI (ISS Experiment)

From HandWiki

The Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) use several highly sensitive X-ray detectors, including the Gas Slit Camera (GSC) and the Solid-state Slit Camera (SSC), located at the Equipment Exchange Unit (EER) site 1 on the Japanese Experiment Module - Exposed Facility (JEF), aboard the International Space Station.[1]

History

MAXI was developed by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tsukuba, Japan, and is designed to continuously monitor X-ray sources and variability as the International Space Station (ISS) orbits Earth. It was launched in 2009.

MAXI conducts a full sky survey every 96 minutes searching for variations in X-ray sources.

MAXI helped discover the rapidly rotating black-hole/star system MAXI J1659-152.[2]

Discoveries

MAXI has been in operation for several years and has made several x-ray photos of nebulae and space objects while being stationed on the ISS (International Space Station).

iWF-MAXI

iSEEP Wide-Field MAXI (iWF-MAXI) is a follow-on instrument to the current MAXI. Compared with MAXI, which can only monitor 2% of the celestial sphere instantaneously, iWF-MAXI is always capable of monitoring 10%, and can monitor up to 80% in 92 minutes. iWF-MAXI will utilize the i-SEEP (IVA-replaceable Small Exposed Experiment Platform) bus, an exposure adapter for middle-sized payloads in JEM-EF. Chosen as an ISAS Mission of Opportunity in 2015,[3] iWF-MAXI is currently targeted to begin observation at the ISS by 2019.[4]

See also

  • Scientific research on the ISS

References

External links