Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch its last mission for 2023, known as the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) on December 28, 2023 from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
The XPoSat mission is designed to delve into the mysteries of cosmic X-ray sources, specifically targeting celestial entities like neutron stars, black holes, and other energetic phenomena.
Scheduled for liftoff in the final weeks of December, XPoSat will be launched aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), propelling it into a low Earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 650 kilometres.
The mission carries two scientific payloads, with the primary one being POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays). Developed in collaboration with ISRO's U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), POLIX is a Thomson X-ray polarimeter, tasked with measuring the degree and angle of polarization in the medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV.
POLIX is expected to observe about 40 bright astronomical sources during its projected five-year lifespan, marking it as the first payload dedicated to medium X-ray band polarimetry measurements.
Accompanying POLIX is the XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing) payload, developed by ISRO's Space Astronomy Group. XSPECT aims to provide spectroscopic information and timing of soft X-rays in the energy range of 0.8-15 keV, contributing to a detailed understanding of X-ray sources.
XPoSat's mission objectives include the measurement of X-ray polarization, offering astronomers valuable insights into celestial objects, ranging from magnetic fields to the nature of accelerators responsible for electron energization.
The mission will conduct long-term spectral and temporal studies of cosmic X-ray sources, effectively bridging an energy gap in detection capability between existing soft and hard X-ray polarimeters.
Positioned at the forefront of X-ray polarimetry, XPoSat follows in the footsteps of NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), becoming the world's second mission dedicated to such precise measurements.
XPoSat will focus on the 50 brightest known sources in the universe, including pulsars, black hole X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, and non-thermal supernova remnants, providing a comprehensive understanding of these enigmatic cosmic entities.