Broad Band X-ray Telescope

Broadband X -ray Telescope ( BBXRT ) was an X-ray telescope was operated in 1990 during a flight of the Space Shuttle.

BBXRT consisted of two identically aligned telescopes of 3.8 m focal length and 40 cm in diameter, were movably mounted in the cargo bay of the space shuttle on a common mount. Telescopes and instruments have been developed under the direction of the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA. An important innovation was the use of cooled Si: Li semiconductor detectors used over the wide energy range 0.3-12 keV, a relatively good energy resolution could be achieved of about 90-150 eV.

BBXRT was on the STS -35 mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia from 2 December to 11 December 1990 as part of the ASTRO -1 payload in orbit. The tracking of celestial objects from the Space Shuttle was less efficient than planned, but good data with a total of 157 observations were obtained from 82 cosmic X-ray sources.

Because of the over previous X-ray telescopes improved energy resolution, were the main results of BBXRT from the spectroscopy of X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, clusters of galaxies and supernova remnants.

BBXRT was originally planned together with the Diffuse X -ray Spectrometer, or DXS, as an independent shuttle payload SHEAL II. The DXS, the second component of this Shuttle High Energy Astrophysics Laboratory, flew ultimately as a secondary payload on STS- 54th