GAMMA RAY TELESCOPE

Developed by Istituto di Fisica dell'Universita, Palermo / Istituto di Scienze Fisica dell'Universita, Milano

Balloon launched on 7/23/1971, from Trapani-Birgi Airport, Sicily, Italy

Purpose of the flight and payload description

This balloon borne gamma-ray telescope has been designed to measure the direction of arrival and energy spectrum of extraterrestrial gamma-rays in the energy range from 0.8 MeV to 10 MeV. The scheme of the instrument can be seen at left. Directionality, 14° F.W.H.M., measured at 2.7 MeV, is achieved by the collimation technique with semiactive shielding consisting of a multiple sandwich of lead sheets and scintillation counters. The gamma-ray detector is a low atomic number, Boron loaded, liquid scintillator NE-311.

In this experimental flight the telescope was mounted vertically with no provision for orientation. Since the flight trajectory coasted almost exactly along the parallel 38° N, a large part of the Cygnus region was in the telescope field of view during the flight.

Details of the balloon flight

Balloon launched on: 7/23/1971 at 23:00 utc
Launch site: Trapani-Birgi Airport, Sicily, Italy  
Balloon launched by: Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
Balloon manufacturer/size/composition: Zero Pressure Balloon  
End of flight (L for landing time, W for last contact, otherwise termination time): 7/24/1971

External references

If you consider this website interesting or useful, you can help me to keep it up and running with a small donation to cover the operational costs. Just the equivalent of the price of a cup of coffee helps a lot.



2321