Koronas-Foton (), also known as CORONAS-Photon (Complex Orbital Observations Near-Earth of Activity of the Sun-Photon), was a Russian

solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

research satellite. It was the third satellite in the Russian CORONAS programme, and part of the international

Living With a Star Living With a Star (LWS) is a NASA scientific program to study those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is a crosscutting initiative with goals and objectives relevant to NASA's Exploration Initiat ...

programme. It was launched on 30 January 2009, from Site 32/2 at the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome () is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, near the town of Plesetsk, from which it takes its name. Until 2025 and the commissioning of the Andøya Space, Andøya base in Norway, it was the only operati ...

, aboard the final flight of the

Tsyklon-3 The Tsyklon-3, also known as Tsiklon-3 and Cyclone-3 (known as SL-14 by the United States DoD), GRAU index 11K68, was a Soviet, and subsequently Ukrainian orbital carrier rocket. Overview Tsyklon-3 launching a Meteor-3 satellite at left A ...

rocket. On 1 December 2009 all scientific instruments on the satellite were turned off due to the problems with power supply that were caused by a design flaw. On 18 April 2010 the creators of the satellite announced it was lost "with a good deal of certainty".

Overview

The goal was to investigate the processes of free energy accumulation in the Sun's atmosphere, accelerated particle phenomena and solar flares, and the correlation between solar activity and

geomagnetic storm A geomagnetic storm, also known as a magnetic storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere that is driven by interactions between the magnetosphere and large-scale transient Plasma (physics), plasma and magnetic field structur ...

s on Earth. Launch occurred successfully on 30 January 2009, and the first batch of science data was downloaded from the satellite on 19 February 2009. The satellite operated in a 500 x 500 km x 82.5°

polar Polar may refer to: Geography * Geographical pole, either of the two points on Earth where its axis of rotation intersects its surface ** Polar climate, the climate common in polar regions ** Polar regions of Earth, locations within the polar circ ...

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

and was expected to have an operational lifetime of three years. It encountered power system problems during the first

eclipse season An eclipse season is a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Eclipse seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of the Orbit of the Moon, Moon's orbital plane (orbital inclination, tilted five degrees to the ecliptic, Earth ...

, about six months after launch, and contact with the satellite was lost on 1 December 2009. The satellite returned to life on December 29 after its solar panels received enough light to power its control systems, but attempts to revive the satellite failed, and the satellite was considered lost. On 5 July 2009, Koronas-Foton's TESIS telescope registered the most powerful solar outburst of the year so far, lasting 11 minutes, from 06:07 to 06:18 GMT. Solar X-ray peak intensity reached С2.7 in a 5-level scale used to classify solar flares. The last equally powerful outburst occurred on 25 March 2008.

Development

Koronas-Foton was a successor to the Koronas-F and Koronas-I satellites, launched in 1994 and 2001, respectively. It was being operated by the

Russian Federal Space Agency The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research. Originating from ...

, the

Moscow Engineering Physics Institute National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) () is a public university, public technical university in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1942 as the Moscow Mechanical Institute of Munitions, but was soon renam ...

(MIFI) and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Electromechanics. It was built using a

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

constructed for

Meteor-M The Meteor spacecraft are weather observation satellites launched by the Soviet Union and Russia since the Cold War. The Meteor satellite series was initially developed during the 1960s. The Meteor satellites were designed to monitor atmospher ...

weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites are mainly of two types: polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asyn ...

s,. Koronas-Foton also carried three Indian '' Roentgen Telescope'' or ''RT'' instruments: RT-2/S, RT-2/G, and RT-2/CZT. They were used to conduct photometric and spectrometric research into the Sun, and for low-energy

gamma-ray 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 ...

imagery. These instruments were operated by the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...

(ISRO), and were constructed by a collaboration of the

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) is a major space research centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), focusing on rocket and space vehicles for India's satellite programme. It is located in Thiruvananthapuram, in the India ...

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...

and Indian Centre for Space Physics.

Instruments

The satellite's scientific payload included an array of 12 instruments.Koronas-Foton
Russianspaceweb.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-01 Eight instruments were designed for registering electromagnetic radiation from the Sun in a wide range of the spectrum from near electromagnetic waves to gamma-radiation, as well as solar neutrons. Two instruments were designed to detect charged particles such as protons and electrons. Scientific instruments: #Natalya-2M spectrometer by MIFI, Moscow, Russia #RT-2 gamma-telescope by TIFR/ICSP/VSSC,
www.isro.org Retrieved on 2009-02-03. India. #Pingvin-M (Penguin) polarimeter by MIFI, Moscow, Russia #Konus-RF x-ray and gamma spectrometer by

Ioffe Institute The Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (for short, Ioffe Institute, ) is one of Russia's largest research centers specialized in physics and technology. The institute was established in 1918 in Petrograd (now St. ...

, Russia #BRM x-ray detector by MIFI, Russia #FOKA UV-detector by MIFI, Russia #TESIS telescope/spectrometer by FIAN, Russia, with SphinX soft X-ray spectrophotometer, SRC PAS, Poland #Electron-M-Peska charged particles analyser by NIIYaF MGU, Russia #STEP-F Electron and proton detector by Kharkov National University, Ukraine #SM-8M

magnetometer A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...

by NPP Geologorazvedka/MIFI, Russia Service systems: #SSRNI science data collection and registration system by IKI, Russia #Radio transmission system and antennas by RNII KP, Russia

References

{{Use British English, date=January 2014 Missions to the Sun Spacecraft launched in 2009 Satellites of Russia 2009 in Russia

Overview

Development

Instruments

See also

References