XPoSat – POLIX and XSPECT

India is set to launch XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite), its dedicated polarimetry mission to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.

Launch vehicle – Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
Mission life – Approximately 5 years.
Objective – To study of temporal, spectral, and polarization features of the bright X-Ray sources.
2 scientific payloads – POLIX and XSPECT.
Orbit – The payloads are carried to the low earth orbit (non-sun synchronous orbit of ~650 km altitude, low inclination of approximately 6 degree).

POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays)

It is the primary payload to measure polarimetry parameters.
Developed by – The Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, with support from various ISRO centres.
Objective – To specifically measure the degree and angle of polarization in the medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV photons originating from astronomical sources.

POLIX is the 1^st payload in the medium X-ray energy band dedicated for polarimetry measurements.

It is made of a collimator, a scatterer and 4 X-ray proportional counter detectors that surrounds the scatterer.
Scatterer – It is made of low atomic mass material which causes anisotropic Thomson scattering of incoming polarised X-rays.
Collimator – It restricts the field of view to 3 degree x 3 degree so as to have only 1 bright source in the field of view.
It is expected to observer about 40 bright astronomical sources of different categories.

XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing)

Developed by – The U.R. Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), ISRO.
Objective – To do long-term spectral and temporal studies of cosmic X-Ray sources in the energy band of 0.8-15 keV.
Passive collimators – They are used to reduce the background by narrowing the field of view of XSPECT.
It would observe several types of sources viz X-ray pulsars, black hole binaries, low-magnetic field neutron star (NS) in LMXBs, AGNs and Magnetars.

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