Solar B

Also called Hinode (means sunrise)

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General

Designation	29479 / 06041A
Launch date	22 Sep 2006
Country of origin	Japan
Mission	Scientific: sun observation
Perigee/Apogee	600 km sun-synchronous
Inclination	98°
Period	96 min
Launch vehicle	Mu 5 #30
Launch site	Uchinoura Space Center

Development cost: $190 million, shared between Japan (ISAS), United States (NASA) and United Kingdom.

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External resources

http://solar-b.nao.ac.jp/index_e.shtml

sat-index articles

Technical data

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Specifications

Prime contractor
Platform
Mass at launch	900 kg
Dry mass
Dimension
Solar array
Stabilization
DC power	1000 W
Design lifetime

Has three telescopes to monitor the solar magnetic field at 0.2 arc-sec resolution: one optical, one X-ray and one ultraviolet.

Changes in the size and orientation could be studied as a precursor of solar flares that are known to be powered by magnetic energy changes.

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SOT (Solar Optical Telescope)

A 50-cm aperture telescope that is highly stabilized to provide jitter-free images in the focal plane at 1.5 m covering the 388-668 nm wavelength band.

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XRT (X-Ray Telescope)

A 34-cm wide tube of focal length 2.7 m and operates with grazing incidence X-rays of 0.2-20 nm wavelength. It has an effective area of 1.0 cm2 and a field-of-view of 34 arc-minutes, and is backed by 2048 x 2048 pixels of CCD detectors.

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EIS (EUV Imaging Spectrometer)

A grating spectrometer that is fed by a 15 cm diameter paraboloid of focal length 1.94 m. It covers the 17-21 nm and 25-29 nm wavength bands containing Fe XII, Fe XV, Fe XXIV, and He II lines, through a CCD array of 1024 x 2048 pixels.

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