In the early hours of last Thursday (12/09), the US space agency – NASA launched another mission, named Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). It has a satellite equipped with powerful telescopes capable of measuring through X-rays at the black hole. The telescope’s job is to measure X-rays emanating from associated black holes and neutron stars.
The launch took place at 3:00 pm, Brasilia time, on a SpaceX rocket directly from the Kennedy Space Center in the state of Florida. NASA explained that the initiative is an effort between it and the Italian Space Agency to build three telescopes with this technology that seeks to observe cosmic rays.
In fact, the spacecraft is even smaller than NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, but it is also the first observatory dedicated to this type of project. Mission carried out from the program Launch Services Program (LSP), developed in 1998. The program has the flexibility of choice by the provider of the platform to be launched. In this case 39A was chosen.
The difference of the platform is that it has a water suppression system which helps to reduce the impact from the launch of the rocket. With this, the system allows for greater security for the satellite until it reaches orbit. About 33 minutes after launch, satellite and rocket fragmentation,
In about a minute, the platform was already activating its solar panels. According to NASA data, the satellite orbits the Earth’s equator at an altitude of 600 km, sending the first telemetry data. will be collected Around the most extreme objects in the universe, such as supernova remnants and ejected particle flows from black holes.
