The enhanced x-ray timing and polarimetry mission (eXTP) is a flagship observatory for x-ray timing, spectroscopy and polarimetry developed by an international consortium. Thanks to its very large collecting area, good spectral resolution and unprecedented polarimetry capabilities, eXTP will explore the properties of matter and the propagation of light in the most extreme conditions found in the universe. eXTP will, in addition, be a powerful x-ray observatory. The mission will continuously monitor the x-ray sky, and will enable multi-wavelength and multi-messenger studies. The mission is currently in phase B, which will be completed in the middle of 2022.
The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT or also dubbed as Insight-HXMT) is China’s first astronomical satellite. It was launched on 15th June 2017 in JiuQuan, China and is currently in service smoothly. It was designed to perform pointing, scanning and gamma-ray burst (GRB) observations and, based on the Direct Demodulation Method (DDM), the image of the scanned sky region can be reconstructed. Here we introduce the mission and its progresses in aspects of payload, core sciences, ground calibration/facility, ground segment, data archive, software, in-orbit performance, calibration, background model, observations and preliminary results.
As China’s first X-ray astronomical satellite, Insight-HXMT (Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope) successfully launched on Jun 15, 2017. It performs timing and spectral studies of bright sources to determine their physical parameters. HXMT carries three main payloads onboard: the High Energy X-ray telescope (HE, 20-250 keV, NaI(Tl)/CsI(Na)), the Medium Energy X-ray Telescope (ME, 5-30 keV, Si-Pin) and the Low Energy X-ray telescope (LE, 1-15 keV, SCD). In orbit, we have used the radioactive sources, activated lines, the fluorescence line, and Cas A to calibrate the gain and energy resolution of the payloads. The Crab pulsar was adopted as the primary effective area calibrator and an empirical function was found to modify the simulated effective areas. The absolute timing accuracy of HXMT is about 100us from the TOA of Crab Pulsar.
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