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German eROSITA Telescope Delivered to NPO Lavochkin. / February 3, 2017 /

On 3 February 2017, the flight version of the eROSITA X-ray telescope built at the Max Planck institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Garching, Germany) was presented at NPO Lavochkin (part of the ROSCOSMOS State Corporation). The eROSITA telescope and Russian ART-XC telescope manufactured by IKI RAS will be used in the Specktr-RG orbital astrophysical observatory.

The German telescope for the first time will make all-sky survey in the X-ray (0.5-10KeV) band with the unprecedented spectral and angular resolution allowing scientists to make new researches of dark matter and the Universe’s objects.

The eROSITA X-ray telescope consists of seven identical mirror modules with nested gold-coated mirrors each. They collect high-energy photons and guide them to X-ray sensitive cameras placed at their focus. For maximum performance, these cameras have to be cooled to –90°C using a complex heat pipe system.

After undergoing the acceptance test, both telescopes will be integrated with the NPO Lavochkin-developed Navigator platform to be further tested.

„Spektr-RG is a large joint Russian and German project aimed at studying the clusters of galaxies, collapsars, and acquiring data on the dark matter nature. The mission is scheduled for launch in March-April 2018 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome,“ says M.N. Pavlinsky. Spektr-RG will be in a Lissajous (or halo) orbit about the Lagrangian point L2 of the Sun-Earth system and for the first four years will observe the entire stellar sky and for the next three and a half years – the Universe’s objects of utmost interest for the world scientific community.

ROSCOSMOS Press Service

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