BeppoSAX US Coordination Facility
- Activities of the Coordinatation
Facility
- The US BeppoSAX Anonymous FTP
area
- Useful E-mail addresses - If you need help
- US saxhelp@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov
- SAX-SDC in Italy helpdesk@sax.sdc.asi.it
SAX is a major program of the
Italian Space
agency (ASI) with participation
of the
Netherlands Agency for Aerospace programs (NIVR). SAX was developed
with the support of a consortium of institutes in Italy,
The Netherlands and the
Space Science Department of ESA .
A collaboration
with the Max-Planck Institute of Extraterrestirial Physics also exists
for X-ray mirror testing and the calibration of the concentrator/spectrometer
system.
The acronym SAX stands for "Satellite per Astronomia X",
italian for "X-Ray Astronomy Satellite". SAX was successfully
launched on April 30 1996 and renamed BeppoSAX in honor of
Giuseppe Occhialini
.
After a period of commissioning phase and Science Verification Phase
BeppoSAX started the AO1 observations in late Fall 1996.
The Italian-Dutch BeppoSAX satellite is uniquely able to measure
simultaneously, with cross-calibrated instruments, the spectrum of both
galactic and extragalactic objects from 0.1 to over 300 keV. The principal
science goals include measurement of the broadband spectrum of AGN, broad-band
spectral monitoring of galactic X-ray binaries, and detection of X-ray (2-30
keV) counterparts to gamma-ray bursts using the Wide Field Cameras.
NASA's 1996 Senior Review of Astrophysics Mission Operations and Data Analysis
Programs recommended that "given the excellent record of the HEASARC in
providing cost-effective analysis tools and user-friendly archives, the
Committee feels that MO&DA funding for SAX should be focused there. The
Committee believes that the establishment of a SAX archive will give US
scientists access to a valuable observational capability and an important
archive of high energy astrophysics data at extremely modest cost."
Following these recommendations a BeppoSAX US coordination facility
was established at the HEASARC
in February 1997.
This facility is working closely with the BeppoSAX Science Data Center (SDC)
in Rome,
and the BeppoSAX instrument teams to support the US community in carrying
out their SAX Guest Investigator programs. In addition the HEASARC is
providing multimission analysis and other supporting
software to the BeppoSAX team.
If you have any questions concerning
BeppoSAX
go to the
Feedback form.
