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+--- Thread: Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (/thread-11402.html)
Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer - Yazata - Dec 9, 2021
This is an orbiting x-ray telescope tweaked to be able to detect x-ray polarization. It's a joint project of NASA and the Italian Space Agency, which provided the satellite telescope's detectors. They say that the polarization of cosmic x-rays can provide lots of good information to astrophysicists about high energy objects like black holes, neutron stars and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXPE
It will be launched in a few minutes at 10:00 PM PST Wednesday, 1:00 AM EST Thursday and 06:00 UTC.
Lauch will be by SpaceX Falcon 9 from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Booster will be B1061 on its 5th trip to space. It's previous exploit include lofting both the Crew 1 and Crew 2 crewed trips to the Space Station. Recovery will be on JRTI out in the Atlantic.
Livestream here
RE: Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer - Yazata - Jan 11, 2022
IXPE has completed its set-up phase and is currently in a calibration phase