XMM - Newton
X-Ray Multi Mirror Mission
Short Description:
The XMM-Newton mission is the second of four cornerstone projects in the ESA long-term programme HORIZON 2000 for space science. The primary scientific objective of XMM-Newton is to perform high throughput spectroscopy of cosmic X-ray sources over a broad band of energies ranging from 0.1 keV to 10 keV. The XMM-Newton spacecraft payload includes three highly-nested grazing-incidence mirror modules of type Wolter I coupled to reflection grating spectrometers and X-ray charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras with resolving powers ranging from 10 up to 1000 as well as one small optical/UV telescope. The MPE has a main contribution on this mission.
Project Type:
Instruments and support for satellite
MPE Contribution:
- Telescope development and test
- EPIC-pn Camera
- Survey Science Center
Status:
satellite launch: December 10, 1999
actual status: active; in Earth orbit
end of mission: t.b.d.
Links:
High-Energy Astrophysics (web pages of the MPE department involved in the project)
