Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope in News

Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) also known as Insight is a Chinese X-ray space observatory, launched on June 15, 2017 to observe black holes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei and other phenomena based on their X-ray and gamma-ray emissions.

It is China’s first astronomy satellite.

It is based on the JianBing 3 imagery reconnaissance satellite series platform.

The project, a joint collaboration of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Tsinghua University, has been under development since 2000.

The satellite has three payloads, the high energy X-ray Telescope (20-250 keV), the medium energy X-ray telescope (5-30 keV), and the low energy X-ray telescope (1-15 keV).

The main scientific instrument is an array of 18 NaI(Tl)/CsI(na) slat-collimated “phoswich” scintillation detectors, collimated to 5.7°×1° overlapping fields of view.