NASA And JAXA Join Forces to Launch New Revolutionary Satellite

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

A new satellite will be launched in August of this year and will study the universe in X-ray light.

NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are collaborating to create a satellite called “XRISM”, which stands for X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission.

The satellite will launch on August 25th from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center and will fly in a low-Earth orbit at a height of 550 km.

Once in orbit, it is meant to “unlock the secrets of black holes, galaxy clusters, supernovae, and other energetic phenomena like active galactic nuclei”.

According to Interesting Engineering, this specialized satellite will allow us to measure the chemical elements that cosmic objects are composed of, which might fill considerable gaps in our understanding of the universe’s evolution.

“The spectra XRISM collects will be the most detailed we’ve ever seen for some of the phenomena we’ll observe,” said Brian Williams, NASA’s XRISM project scientist at Goddard, in a NASA release, and added: “The mission will provide us with insights into some of the most difficult places to study, like the internal structures of neutron stars and near-light-speed particle jets powered by black holes in active galaxies.”

The satellite hosts two advanced science instruments:

First is the “Resolve”, which is an X-ray microcalorimeter spectrometer. “Resolve will give us a new look into some of the universe’s most energetic objects, including black holes, clusters of galaxies, and the aftermath of stellar explosions,” said Richard Kelley, NASA’s XRISM principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Another feature of the satellite is that by recording thousands of X-rays released by cosmic objects, it can generate high-resolution spectra of them, which can be then utilized by experts to learn more about cosmic objects’ physical states, movements, and compositions.

The second significant science instrument onboard is the wide-field X-ray imager called “Xtend”. It was developed by JAXA and was created to allow for imaging large fields of view. It provides XRISM an observing area of 60 percent larger than the average size of the full Moon.

The mission is expected to last three years, depending on the helium levels in the cooling tanks, and experts and scientists are hoping the findings will give us a new understanding of the universe.