Spektr-R - a new radio telescope! Options

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

http://space.skyrocket.de/index_frame.htm?...radioastron.htm

Wow, this one is big!

And yes, launch was scheduled for 2008, but there was a general meeting last month (ref. laspace.ru) and looks like they are on track for launch this year! And they will use a Zenit rocket this time.

Main scientific goal of the mission is the study of various astronomical objects with unprecedented angular resolution up to few millionth of an arcsecond. The resolution achieved with RadioAstron will allow us in principle to study the following phenomena and problems:

* central engine of AGN and physical processes near super massive black holes providing an acceleration of cosmic rays - size, velocity and shape of emitting region in the core, spectrum, polarization and variability of emitting components;
* cosmological models, dark matter and dark energy - by studying dependence of above mentioned AGN's parameters with redshift, and by observing gravitational lensing;
* structure and dynamics of star and planets forming regions in our Galaxy and in AGN - by studying maser and Mega maser radio emission;
* neutron (quark?) stars and black holes in our Galaxy, their structure and dynamics - by VLBI and measurements of visibility scintillations, proper motions and parallaxes;
* structure and distribution of interstellar and interplanetary plasma - by fringe visibility scintillations of pulsars;
* building of high accuracy astronomical reference system of coordinates;
* building of high accuracy model of the Earth gravity field.

I say... WOW! WOW!

[GEmin1]

Great news:

Orbital operations with Russian astrophysical observatory Spectrum-R which had been launched from Baikonur on July 18 continue successfully.
Radiotelescope mirror has been successfully deployed on July 23.

http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=12017

[kap]

Great news:

http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=12017

I'm somewhat new to following these projects online. How much data do the Russians typically share with other scientists, and the public?

-kap

[NGC3314]

I'm somewhat new to following these projects online. How much data do the Russians typically share with other scientists, and the public?

-kap

There's little direct post-USSR experience on deep-sky astro missions, but the Soviet tradition was increasingly to have data appear in the usual astronomical research journals. For Radioastron=Spektr-R, it seems there will be an open call for proposed observations - someone over at nasasaceflight.com found the English-language user's manual. This aspect would mirror the international availability of time on Hubble, Chandra, XMM-Newton, etc. as long as the proposals rank high enough in review. I'd bet the instrument team already has staked out the black holes at the Galactic Center
and in M87!