PolarLight
The Polarimeter Light (PolarLight) mission is a technology demonstration
instrument on-board a CubeSat named Tongchuan-1 (or Zhaojin 1 (TY 4-02)).
It uses a gas pixel detector sensitive
to polarized X-ray light. The satellite was launched into a sun synchronous
polar orbit on October 28, 2018 and is currently still
operating. Ths mission is led by the China Center for Astrophysics at Tsinghua
University in Beijing, China.
PolarLight carries a Gas Pixel Detector (GPD) instrument filled with
dimethyl ether at approximately 0.8 atmosphere pressure, and sealed with a
100 micron thick beryllium window. The detector has an effective area of
1.4 x 1.4 mm. The detector is mounted on a 6U size Cubesat for supporting
electronics, power supply, data recording, and solar panels.
The GPD instrument has produced some preliminary results from observations
of the Crab and Sco X-1 sources.
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Page authors: Lorella Angelini Jesse Allen
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Last modified: Thursday, 22-Apr-2021 11:48:26 EDT
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