AstroSat, India’s first space observatory class satellite dedicated to Astronomy, was launched onboard PSLV from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota on September 28, 2015 into a low earth orbit. After the first six months of calibration and verification phase, the observatory started observing cosmos in multi-wavelength spanning a wide range from near Ultraviolet (UV) to High Energy X- rays. AstroSat carries a total of five scientific payloads, namely, Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT), Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC), Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTi) and Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM). AstroSat has provided good spatial resolution images in UV over half degree field of view and has a large collecting area at High Energy X-rays (LAXPC). Except for SSM, other four payloads onboard AstroSat are co-aligned and capable of performing simultaneous observations of astronomical sources. The observations were carried out based on the proposals received from users in India and abroad. AstroSat has observed more than 750 sources till September 2018. For the proposal cycle starting from October 2018, around 150 of them are approved and scheduled for observations. From the beginning, AstroSat is providing good results.  Data from AstroSat has resulted in close-to 100 publications in refereed journals, and this number is expected to increase with the data now made open to public on September 26, 2018. (Archival Data of AstroSat released).

AstroSat has provided several new and exciting results like

• Solving the decade old puzzle of a cool red star but bright in UV, by identifying it as a binary
• X-ray polarisation from Crab nebula
• Detection of a coronal explosion on the nearest planet-hosting star (simultaneously observed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory and Hubble Space Telescope)

Source: https://www.ISRO.gov.in/

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