Astron was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
space telescope launched on 23 March 1983 at 12:45:06
UTC, using the
Proton launcher. Based on the
4MV spacecraft design and operational for six years, Astron was the largest
ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...
space telescope of its time.
The project was headed by
Alexandr Boyarchuk. The spacecraft was designed and constructed by the
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and
NPO Lavochkin. A group of scientists from these institutions was awarded the
USSR State Prize for their work.
The payload consisted of an 80 cm ultraviolet telescope, which was jointly designed by the USSR and France, and an
X-ray spectroscope.
It could take UV spectra 150-350 nm.
Placed into an orbit with an
apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion.
General description
There are two apsides in any el ...
of , Astron was capable of making observations outside the Earth's
umbra
The umbra, penumbra and antumbra are three distinct parts of a shadow, created by any light source after impinging on an opaque object. Assuming no diffraction, for a collimated beam (such as a point source) of light, only the umbra is cast.
T ...
and
radiation belt.
Among the most important observations made by Astron were those of
SN 1987A
SN 1987A was a type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It occurred approximately from Earth and was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova. 1987A's light reached Earth on ...
supernova from March 4 to March 12, 1987, and of
Halley's Comet in December 1985, the latter of which enabled a group of Soviet scientists to develop a model of the comet's
coma
A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...
.
[
]
Operation of the observatory ended on 23 March 1991.
See also
*
Granat - a later space observatory based on the Venera spacecraft bus
References
*
Space telescopes
Ultraviolet telescopes
Soviet space observatories
1983 in the Soviet Union
Spacecraft launched in 1983
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