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July 12, 2010. S.P.Korolev RSC Energia,
Korolev, Moscow region
On July 11, 1990, launch vehicle Soyuz put into a low-Earth orbit the robotic space observatory, free-flying module Gamma, the world's first large astrophysics and geophysics spacecraft.
The module was built at NPO Energia (RSC Energia since 1994) in cooperation with our country's scientific organizations (Space Research Institute (IKI), Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MFTI), Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology (LFTI), Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences (FIAN)), French scientific organizations (Nuclear Research Center and the National Center for Space Research) and Poland (Polish Academy of Sciences). It operated in orbit for more than 19 months - seven months longer than originally planned.
The mission of the Gamma module took place during a solar maximum. Its onboard telescope Gamma-1 was for a long time the only telescope used for solar flare research and it detected solar flare gamma-ray radiation on March 26, June 15, and October 30, 1991. It was for the first time that experimental data were obtained, which were recognized by the world's scientific community, including detection of streams of gamma-ray with energy exceeding 1 GeV, gamma bursts both those that lasted more than 1 hour and those lasting several tens of milliseconds, gamma bursts produced by pi-zero-mesons, bursts in the center of the solar disk on March 26, 1991.
Gained in the course of the module development and flight tests, along with outstanding scientific results, was great experience in the field of free-flying long-time orbital spacecraft and high-precision attitude control system.
We congratulate participants in the work on the development, launch and operation of the astrophysical module Gamma on the 20th anniversary of its launch into low-Earth orbit, and we wish all the veterans and employees of the companies and organizations who took part in that work good health and new creative achievements in the development of advanced scientific spacecraft for further study of space!
For information:
- Gamma module key performance data: launch mass is 7230 kg, the mass of scientific hardware is 1700 kg, the power generated by steerable solar arrays is about 3 kW, propellant load is 880 kg, 6 control moment gyros within the control system, the working orbit altitude is about 350 km, the inclination is 51.6 degrees.
- The module's scientific equipment includes: Reference sensor Telestar (Poland), electronic equipment and camera unit Vidicon (France), Collimation grating Skat, gamma telescope Gamma-1 (primary) and Disk-D, X-ray telescope Pulsar X-2. This equipment package was intended for high-energy (10 keV to 10 GeV) electromagnetic radiation research.
- Used in the development of the module were mature technologies and upgraded onboard systems from Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and the Mir station core module. The module manufacturing, factory tests and its pre-launch processing were carried out using the existing manufacturing and testing facilities for Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.
Gamma space observatory. 1990. NPO Energia Video
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