India’s premier space astronomy observatory, AstroSat, has proudly marked a decade of operations in the vast expanse of the cosmos. Launched on September 28, 2015, by the PSLV-C30 (XL) rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, this ambitious mission was initially designed for a five-year lifespan. Remarkably, AstroSat has far exceeded expectations, continuing to transmit invaluable data back to Earth.
Over the past ten years, this state-of-the-art multi-wavelength observatory, equipped with five sophisticated payloads, has been at the forefront of numerous groundbreaking discoveries. Its scientific contributions have significantly advanced our understanding of the universe.
Commemorating this significant milestone, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared their pride, stating that AstroSat has delivered profound insights across the electromagnetic spectrum – from ultraviolet and visible light to high-energy X-rays. The observatory has explored everything from mysterious black holes and neutron stars to the closest star, Proxima Centauri, and even detected the first far-ultraviolet photons from galaxies a staggering 9.3 billion light-years away. ISRO extended its congratulations to AstroSat for a successful decade and expressed anticipation for many more years of exciting findings and revelations.
A Suite of Five Powerful Payloads
AstroSat was ingeniously engineered to observe the universe simultaneously across multiple wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum: Visible, Ultraviolet, and both low and high-energy X-ray regions. This unique capability is powered by its five specialized scientific instruments:
- Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT): For capturing detailed images in ultraviolet light.
- Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC): Designed to detect high-energy X-rays.
- Cadmium–Zinc–Telluride Imager (CZTI): Provides imaging and spectroscopic measurements of hard X-rays.
- Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT): Focuses on observing soft X-ray emissions from celestial objects.
- Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM): Continuously scans the sky for transient X-ray sources.
The realization of AstroSat was a monumental collaborative effort by ISRO, involving significant participation from leading astronomy institutions across India, including the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP), and the Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru. Furthermore, various Indian universities and two international institutions from Canada and the United Kingdom also contributed to its successful development, making it a truly global scientific endeavor.