Astron was a Sovietspace telescope launched on 23 March 1983 at 12:45:06 UTC, using the Proton launcher.[3] Based on the 4MV spacecraft design and operational for six years, Astron was the largest ultraviolet space telescope of its time.
The payload consisted of an 80 cm ultraviolet telescope, which was jointly designed by the USSR and France, and an X-ray spectroscope.[7]
It could take UV spectra 150-350 nm.[8]
Placed into an orbit with an apogee of 185,000 kilometres (115,000 mi), Astron was capable of making observations outside the Earth's umbra and radiation belt.
Among the most important observations made by Astron were those of SN 1987A supernova from March 4 to March 12, 1987,[9] 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.[10]
Operation of the observatory ended on 23 March 1991.[11]
^Boyarchuk, A. A.; Grinin, V. P.; Zvereva, A. M.; Petrov, P. P.; Sheikhet, A. I. (1986). "A model for the coma of Comet Halley, based on the Astron ultraviolet spectrophotometry". Pis'ma v Astronomicheskii Zhurnal. 12: 696. Bibcode:1986PAZh...12..696B.
^Harvey, Brian; Zakutnyaya, Olga (2011). Russian Space Probes: Scientific Discoveries and Future Missions. Springer Praxis. pp. 376–380. ISBN9781441981493.
A.A. Бойарчук (1994). Астрофизические исследования на космической станции "Астрон" (in Russian). Moscow: Nauka.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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