''Suzaku'' (formerly ASTRO-EII) was an

X-ray astronomy X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy which deals with the study of X-ray observation and detection from astronomical objects. X-radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to detect X-rays must be taken to ...

satellite developed jointly by the

Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science , or ISAS, is a Japanese national research organization of astrophysics using rockets, astronomical satellites and interplanetary probes which played a major role in Japan's space development. Established as part of the University of Tokyo ...

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...

to probe high-energy X-ray sources, such as

supernova explosions A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original obj ...

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

s and galactic clusters. It was launched on 10 July 2005 aboard the

M-V The M-V rocket, also called M-5 or Mu-5, was a Japanese solid-fuel rocket designed to launch scientific satellites. It was a member of the Mu family of rockets. The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) began developing the M-V i ...

launch vehicle on the M-V-6 mission. After its successful launch, the satellite was renamed ''Suzaku'' after the mythical

Vermilion bird of the South The Vermilion Bird ( zh, c=朱雀, p=Zhūquè) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. According to Wu Xing, the Taoist five elemental system, it represents the Fire element, the direction south, and the season of summer corre ...

. Just weeks after launch, on 29 July 2005, the first of a series of cooling system malfunctions occurred. These ultimately caused the entire reservoir of

liquid helium Liquid helium is a physical state of helium at very low temperatures at standard atmospheric pressures. Liquid helium may show superfluidity. At standard pressure, the chemical element helium exists in a liquid form only at the extremely low temp ...

to boil off into space by 8 August 2005. This effectively shut down the X-ray Spectrometer-2 (XRS-2), which was the spacecraft's primary instrument. The two other instruments, the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) and the Hard X-ray Detector (HXD), were unaffected by the malfunction. As a result, another XRS was integrated into the Hitomi X-ray satellite, launched in 2016, which also was lost weeks after launch. A Hitomi successor,

XRISM The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM, pronounced 'crism' or 'krizz-em', as if the X was a chi), is an X-ray space telescope. It is a mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in partnership with NASA and ESA, intend ...

, launched on 7 September 2023, with an X-ray Spectrometer (Resolve) onboard as the primary instrument. On 26 August 2015, JAXA announced that communications with ''Suzaku'' had been intermittent since 1 June 2015 and that the resumption of scientific operations would take a lot of work to accomplish, given the spacecraft's condition. Mission operators decided to complete the mission imminently, as ''Suzaku'' had exceeded its design lifespan by eight years at this point. The mission came to an end on 2 September 2015, when JAXA commanded the radio transmitters on ''Suzaku'' to switch themselves off.

Spacecraft instruments

''Suzaku'' carried high spectroscopic resolution, very wide energy band instruments for detecting signals ranging from soft X-rays up to

gamma-rays A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol ), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from high energy interactions like the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei or astronomical events like solar flares. It consists o ...

(0.3–600

keV In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When us ...

). High-resolution spectroscopy and wide-band are essential factors in physically investigating high-energy astronomical phenomena, such as

s and

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

s. One such feature, the

K-line (x-ray) The K-line is a spectral peak in Astronomy, astronomical spectroscopy, spectrometry used, along with the L-line (spectrometry), L-line, to observe and describe the light spectrum of stars. The K-line is associated with iron (Fe) and is described ...

, may be key to more direct imaging of black holes. * X-ray Telescope (XRT) * X-ray Spectrometer-2 (XRS-2) * X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) * Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) ** Uses

Gadolinium Gadolinium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Gd and atomic number 64. It is a silvery-white metal when oxidation is removed. Gadolinium is a malleable and ductile rare-earth element. It reacts with atmospheric oxygen or moi ...

Silicate crystal (GSO), Gd₂SiO₅(Ce) ** Uses

Bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element; it has symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth occurs nat ...

Germanate crystal (BGO), Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂ File:ASTRO-EII XRT.JPG, X-ray Telescope (XRT) File:Suzaku HXD.jpg, Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) File:Suzaku XIS.jpg, X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) File:Suzaku XRS.jpg, X-ray Spectrometer (XRS)

Results

Suzaku discovered "fossil" light from a supernova remnant.

ASTRO-E

''Suzaku'' was a replacement for ASTRO-E, which was lost in a launch failure. The

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

on the M-V-4 mission launched on 10 February 2000 at 01:30:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

. It experienced a failure of 1st stage engine nozzle 42 seconds into the launch, causing control system breakdown and underperformance. Later stages could not compensate for underperformance, leaving payload in x orbit and subsequent reentry and crashed with its payload into the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

References

External links

(JAXA)
JAXA/ISAS ''Suzaku'' (ASTRO-EII) mission overview

JAXA report presentation of failure analysis of XRS
(in Japanese) *

NASA/GSFC ''Suzaku'' Learning Center

{{Orbital launches in 2005 X-ray telescopes Space telescopes Satellites of Japan Spacecraft launched in 2005

Spacecraft instruments

Results

ASTRO-E

References

Further reading

External links