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:

XMM-Newton pages at ESA

High-Energy Astrophysics (web pages of the MPE department involved in the project)

 

Go to Editor View