The OSO-7 Satellite
OSO-7, like the other Orbiting Solar
Observatory missions, was primarily a solar observatory designed to
point a battery of UV and X-ray telescopes at the Sun from a platform
mounted on a cylindrical wheel. The detectors for observing cosmic
X-ray sources were the X-ray proportional counters,
built by MIT, the hard X-ray telescope by UC San Diego and the Gamma Ray
Monitor by the University of New Hampshire.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime : 29
September 1971 - 9 July 1974
Energy Range :
1 keV - 10 MeV
Payload :
- 2 banks of Proportional Counters: 1 - 60 keV, FOV 1° & 3°
- Hard X-ray telescope: 7 - 550 keV, FOV 6.5°, effective area ~64 cm2
- Gamma ray Monitor: 300 keV - 10 MeV, resolution 7.8% at 662 keV
Science Highlights:
- X-ray All-sky survey
- Discovery of the 9-day periodicity in Vela X-1 which led to its optical identification as a HMXRB.
- Gamma-ray observations of solar flares
Archive: No data available at the HEASARC.NSSDC holds the OSO-7 data in their native format.
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Last modified: Thursday, 26-Jun-2003 13:48:53 EDT