BeppoSAX (Satellite per Astronomia a raggi X)
A major project of ASI (the Italian Space Agency) with participation of
the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs. It was the first X-ray
mission with a scientific payload spanning more than three orders of magnitude
in energy – 0.1–300 keV – and has a relatively large effective
area and medium energy resolution and imaging capabilities in the range
0.1–10 keV. During its six years of operation, BeppoSAX carrid out
nearly 1,500 observations of most types of cosmic ray sources and discovered
more than 50 gamma ray bursts. It was shut down on Apr. 30, 2002, and reentered
Earth's atmosphere a year later. BeppoSAX was named for the Italian physicist
Guiseppe "Beppo" Occhialini (1907–1993).
| launch date |
Apr. 30, 1996 |
| launch vehicle |
Atlas I |
| launch site |
Cape Canaveral |
| orbit |
584 × 601 km × 4.0° |
Related entry
• X-ray satellites
Related category
• SATELLITES
AND SPACE PROBES
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