Images and Movies
Contents:
The Groovie Movie
Images of RXTE from Assembly to Orbit
RXTE Launch: Movies and Computer Animation
- RXTE Prelaunch Activities
- (2.4 M)
- (2.2 M)
- Launch of the RXTE satellite.
Listen to the rocket's roar on liftoff!
- (2.1 M)
- (1.8 M)
- Launch of the RXTE Satellite With Narration from Mission Control!
- Jettison of Delta rocket boosters.
Watch the boosters fall away. Be sure to look at the rocket's tail closely!
- Animation: Deployment after launch of XTE solar array panels.
RXTE was put into a Low Earth Orbit by a Delta launch vehicle.
After separation from the Delta second stage, both solar arrays were
deployed. The high gain antennas were then deployed one at a time.
- Animation: View of the RXTE satellite fully deployed.
The scientific objective of RXTE is to make temporal and spectral
studies of celestial X-ray sources in the 2 to 200 keV spectrum. RXTE will
also perform continual all-sky surveys to acquire long term plots of
source intensities and to observe transient phenomena.
- Animation: The RXTE satellite in orbit.
RXTE is a three axis stabilized spacecraft with two high-gain communication
antennas that continually track TDRSS east and TDRSS west. As it orbits the
Earth, the spacecraft remains inertially fixed, the solar arrays normal to the
sun-line, and instrument detectors pointed to their target.
- Animation: The All-Sky Monitor (ASM) Instrument.
The All-Sky Monitor, or ASM, independently rotates and will continuously
scan 70% of the sky in each orbit. Data are observed in the 2-10 keV energy
range. These data are used by the science team to identify new sources or
changes of known sources.
- Animation: The Proportional Counter Array (PCA) Instrument
The Proportional Counter Array, or PCA, has five proportional counter
units that observe sources in the X-ray energy range of 2-60 keV. The PCA data
will be used to study changes in source behavior on day-to-year time scales.
- Animation: The High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment (HEXTE) Instrument.
The High Energy X-ray Timing Experiment, or HEXTE, collects data in the
20-200 keV X-ray energy range. Two independent clusters alternately move on
and off X-ray sources.
- Animation: XTE repositions to observe a new target.
At a pre-specified time, the RXTE attitude control system receives
instructions from the onboard computer memory to rotate the spacecraft body
to align the instrument detectors to a new target. To observe a new target,
the spacecraft will rotate about the axis that provides the shortest path
to the new target. This is known as the eigenaxis.
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