Astro-G
Astro-G (also known as VSOP-2) is a planned radio telescope satellite under development by JAXA. It is expected to be launched into elliptic orbit around Earth (apogee height 25,000 km, perigee height 1,000 km).[1] Astro-G was selected in February 2006 against the competition of a proposed new X-Ray astronomy mission (NeXT) and a proposed solar sail mission to Jupiter. Funding started from FY 2007 with a budget of 12 billion yen, around 100 million US dollars.
Featuring a 9 m diameter dish antenna to observe in 8, 22 and 43 GHz bands, it will be used in a combination of ground radio telescopes to create Very Long Baseline Interferometry. It is expected to achieve ten times higher resolution and ten times higher sensitivity than its predecessor HALCA.
It was planned to be launched in 2012 but a technical difficulty of dish antenna as well as the budget constraint lead to put the development on hold for fiscal year 2010,[2][3] and the launch is to be delayed no earlier than 2013.
[edit] Science targets
Key science :
- Jet structure, collimation and acceleration regions
- Structure of accretion disks around AGN
- Structure of magnetic fields in protostars
Other science targets:
- Galactic masers in star-forming region
- Extragalactic Megamasers
- Radio quiet quasars
- X-ray binaries, SNR, gravitational lenses etc.
[edit] References
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "事業番号3-34" (in Japanese). http://www.cao.go.jp/sasshin/oshirase/pdf/nov17-am-shiryo/3-34.pdf. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
- ^ "10-1．平成22年度予算案の概要" (in Japanese). http://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/other/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2010/01/19/1289012_012.pdf. Retrieved March 9, 2010.
[edit] External links
- VSOP-2 Project - National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
- http://www.vsop.isas.jaxa.jp/vsop2/ (Japanese)
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