Hessi Solar Flare Observation Spacecraft, USA
Key Data:
Start year
2002
Project type
Spacecraft
Base Country
USA
Completion
2004/5
Key Players:
Sponsor
NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Centre).
Lead contractor
NASA
Construction
Van Beek Consultancy; Tecomett; Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC); Paul Sherrer Institute
Key Information:
Orbit
Circular, 600km altitude, 38° inclination to the equator
Spacecraft Pointing
To within 0.2° of Sun centre, spinning at 15 revolutions per minute
Field of View
Full Sun (1°)
Detectors
Nine segmented, hyperpure germanium crystals cooled to 75°K (-198°C)
Imaging Technique
Fourier-transform imaging with 9 rotating modulation collimators (grid pairs)
Temporal Resolution
Tens of milliseconds for a basic image
Spectral Resolution
0.5keV (FWHM) to 30keV
Aspect System
Solar Aspect System (SAS) determines the direction to Sun-centre to better than 1.5 arcseconds
Angle System
Roll Angle System (RAS) determines the roll angle to better than 3 arcminutes
Total Weight
290kg
Power Consumption
110W
Onboard Memory
4.0GB
Telemetry
Up to 11 Gbits/day (3.5 Mbits/second)
