- ASTRO-G
ASTRO-G (also known as VSOP-2) is a planned
radio telescope satellite under development byJAXA . It is expected to be launched in fiscal year2012 into elliptic orbit around Earth (apogee height 25,000 km, perigee height 1,000 km) [http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/science/news/20070510ik21.htm] . 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 will start 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 predecessorHALCA .cience Targets
Key science :Jet structure, collimation and acceleration regions Structure of accretion disks around AGNStructure of magnetic fields in protostars
Other science targets:Galactic masers in star-forming regionExtragalactic MegamasersRadio quiet quasarsX-ray binaries, SNR, gravitational lenses etc.
External links
* http://www.vsop.isas.jaxa.jp/vsop2/
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