Koronas-Foton

Coronas - Foton (Russian Коронас - Фотон, also CORONAS - FOTON, for Complex Orbital Observations Near-Earth of Activity of the Sun) is the name for a Russian solar research satellites. It's the third satellite of the Russian Coronas program and a part of the International Living -With- A- Star program.

History

Coronas - Foton is a successor of the Coronas -F and Coronas -I satellite, which was launched on 2 March 1994 and 31 July 2001. It is operated by Roskosmos, the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the Research Institute for Electromechanics. The objective of the satellite is to study the energy accumulation and transfer of energy to accelerate particles during solar flares, the study of the mechanisms of acceleration of the particles, the propagation and interaction of the particles in the solar atmosphere and the study of solar activity in relation with physico- chemical processes in the upper atmosphere of the Earth.

The satellite was launched on 30 January 2009 from position 32 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome with a cyclone -3 and reached the same day its planned orbit. After the collapse of the energy supply in mid-January 2010, the satellite was abandoned a short time later. It should provide at least three years, according to data planning actually.

Specifications

As the satellite bus of the Meteor -M weather satellite was used. The mass of the satellite is 1900 kg of which 540 kg scientific payload on board. The payload consists of:

• The high energy spectrometer NATALYA -2M ( MEPhI ) gamma-ray spectroscopy in the range from 0.3 to 2000 MeV neutrons and 20 to 300 MeV
• The low- energy gamma-ray telescope RT -2 ( TATA Institute of Fundamental Research, India) in the range 10-150 keV and 0.1 to 2 MeV, a time resolution of less than 1 ms and a total weight of 55 kg. The telescope consists of three detectors RT 2 / s, RT 2 / g, RT-2/GA ( a composite scintillation detector thalliumdotiertem sodium iodide and cesium iodide with natriumdotiertem as the detector material and a semiconductor detector cadmium zinc telluride ), and a electronic block RT -2 / E.
• Spectrometer / polarimeter for hard gamma rays PENGUIN -M ( Ioffe Physical - Technical Institute, St. Petersburg ) in the range 20-150 keV ( polarimeter ), 2-10 keV ( measurement) and from 0.015 to 5 MeV ( spectrometer )
• The X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometer CONE -RF ( Ioffe ) for the measurement of solar flares and gamma-ray bursts in the range of 10 keV - 12 MeV with high temporal resolution
• Gamma-ray monitor BRM ( MEPhI ) with six channels in the range 20-600 keV with a time resolution 2-3 ms
• Six channel UV monitor Phoka ( MEPhI ) in the range 1-130 nm
• Telescope, coronagraph and imaging spectrometer TESIS ( Lebedev Physical Institute), the images in narrow spectral bands, for example, the emission lines of HeII, sixi, FeXXI - FeXXIII, MgXII, ... in the range 13.2 to 13.6, 29.5 to 31.5 and 841.8 to 842.3 nm
• Instrument for measuring charged particles ELECTRON -M - PESCA ( Scobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University ) to study the flow and energy of protons ( 1-20 MeV), electrons ( 0.2 to 2 MeV) and nucleons (Z < 26, 2-50 MeV / nucleon )
• The charged particle measuring instrument STEP F ( Kharkov National University ) to study the flow and the energy of protons ( 9.8 to 61.0 MeV), electrons ( from 0.4 to 14.3 MeV ), and alpha particles ( 37 to 246 MeV )
• Magnetometer SM -8M in the range of -55 ... 55 μT.

For data transmission is an X-band communication system with an output of eight watts. As planned life expectancy of the satellite three years are given.