Astronomical Netherlands Satellite

The Astronomical Nederlandse satellit (ANS ) was the first large Dutch Space Project, a space telescope for ultraviolet astronomy and X-ray astronomy.

ANS was launched on August 30, 1974 from Vandenberg Air Force Base with a Scout rocket in a too low Earth orbit. He resigned on June 14, 1977 back into the Earth's atmosphere.

ANS was a joint project of the Dutch NIVR and the U.S. NASA. The scientific instruments were:

• An ultraviolet telescope with a 22 cm diameter mirror with a spectrophotometer for the wavelength range 150-330 nm, a development of University of Groningen
• An experiment for the soft X-ray range ( from 0.16 to 0.28 and 0.3-7 keV), a development of University of Utrecht
• An American experiment for hard X-ray range (1-30 keV).

ANS discovered included for the first time X-ray emission from the corona of a star other than the Sun, the star Capella. X-ray outbursts and Röntgenflares of the variable stars UV Ceti and YZ CMi.