Einstein (astronomical observatory)

2024: Orbit Launch

On January 9, 2024, China successfully launched the Long March 2C (Changzheng-2C) rocket. The payload was the Einstein Observatory, designed to study X-rays in outer space.

The carrier launched from the Xichang Cosmodrome at 15:03 Beijing time (at 10:03 to To Moscow). The Chinese Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has confirmed the successful launch of a 1450 kg probe into a given orbit - with an altitude of 600 km and an inclination of 29 degrees. Einstein is expected to last at least three years.

Einstein Observatory

The project, in addition to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, involves the German Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics of the Max Planck Society and the French Space Agency (CNES). The equipment of the device includes a wide-angle X-ray telescope (WXT). The apparatus will have to observe distant and strong interactions, such as tidal destruction. Such events occur when the star is close enough to the supermassive black hole for the tidal forces from the latter to be stronger than the light's gravity and destroy it. By capturing X-rays from stars ruptured by black holes, the probe could provide new information about such complex and rare phenomena.

WXT uses the latest optics. European Space Agency (ESA) contributed to the mission by providing support in testing and calibrating the telescope's detectors and optical elements. ESA ground stations will also participate in the acquisition of data from the spacecraft. A Chinese constellation of navigation satellites will be used to transmit emergency signals. The Beidou equipment of Einstein includes a second scientific instrument - the FXT X-ray telescope: it can be used for more accurate observations after the WXT detects an X-ray event.^[1]

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