KORONAS-F (also known as CORONAS-F and AUOS-SM-KF) is a Russian solar observatory that
was launched by a Tsiklon-3 rocket from
Plesetsk at 08:00 UT on 31 July 2001. The 2,260 kg (with fuel) spacecraft will be pointing
toward Sun within 10 arc-minutes to conduct a variety of observations.
In broad categories, it carries X-ray monitors to locate sources within 1 arc-sec,
radio receivers to measure flux and polarization, and particle counters.
- The DIFOS instrument is to monitor fluctuations in light intensity in six optical bands
(350, 500, 650, 850, 1,100, and 1.500 nanometer) at a precision of one part in a million.
The analysis will reveal a spectrum of normal mode seismic oscillations in the Sun.
- The SORS instrument will monitor solar radio bursts of II, III, and IV types, in the
range 0.1-30 MHz, with 0.5 microvolt sensitivity and through 400 frequency channels, with
a full spectrum enabled in three seconds. The ZENIT instrument (Investigator: V. N.
Oraevsky, IZMIRAN) is a coronograph to monitor the corona out to six solar radii in the
750-850 nm band, at a resolution of 1 arc-min. A full scan is done in less than a
minute.
- The SUFR instrument is a UV radiometer in the 0.1-130 nm band to capture the full disk
emission from the Sun, in the dynamic range 0.1-30 erg/sq-cm/sec.
- The VUSS instrument is designed to monitor the intensity of full-disk, 121.6 nm
Lyman-Alpha line in a band of 5 nm width, with a dynamic range of 0.1-30 erg/sq-cm/sec.
- The DIAGENESS instrument is to scan the Sun's active regions and flares at five arc-sec
resolution in the bands 29.601-33.915, 49.807-53.721, 61.126-67.335 nm at a tempral
resolution of 0.1-10 seconds. It is also to monitor the full disk X-ray emissions in the
bands 2-8 keV. and 10-160 keV.at a temporal resolution of about one second.
- The RESIK instrument is a bent crystal X-ray spectrometer to monitor the bands
11.23-12.93, 12.74-14.42, 14.36-16.30, 16.53-20.29, 21.54-24.45, 24.80-30.43, 33.69-38.79, 38.21-43.26, and 49.60-60.86 nm. The first seven bands pertain, respectively, to emissions
from Ar, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe, K, Ni, and the last is a continuum.
- The IRIS experiment aims to monitor hard X-ray flares in the 2.0-200 keV.energy range at
temporal resolution of 0.01-2.5 seconds, with a sensitivity of 10 nanoergs/sq-cm/sec. The
sensitivity in the 2-15 keV.is high enough to capture microflares and precursors in a
number of small width channels.
- The HELIKON instrument is to capture high energy X-rays and Gamma rays in the range 10 keV-8 MeV. It carries two detectors, one pointing to the Sun and the other in the
anti-solar direction to monitor the energy range in 128 channels, and with 4,096 channels
to cover the lower range of 10 keV.1.0 MeV.
- The SKL instrument has three components.
- The SONG is to measure solar Gamma rays in the 0.03-100 MeV band through a total of 250
channels, the neutrons in the range 3.0-100 MeV through five channels, and electrons in
the 11-108 MeV range through six channels. The second component, MKL is to capture protons
in the range 1-300 MeV, electrons in the 0.5-12 MeV, protons at >10 MeV, and electrons
at >1.3 MeV. The third component, SKI-3 is to ascertain the chemical composition in the
Z = 1-10 group in the 1.5-20 MeV ions. It has a channel for 1.5-19 MeV protons.
- The RES-K instrument is a X-ray spectroheliograph to provide high resolution images of
the solar disk using the emission lines of FeXXIV and FeXXV in the 18.5 -18.7 nm, and the
MgXII line in the 84.1-84.3 nm range. Images in the emission lines covering 1800-2050 nm
and 2850-3350 nm will also be obtained by scanning the range in widths of 0.3 nm. The
images will be at a spatial resolution of six arc-sec. Each full-disk image is to be
produced in about six seconds.
- The RPS instrument is an X-ray spectrometer covering the 3-30 keV-band in steps of 1.5 keV. The range includes the Fe55 line at 5.9 keV. The detector width is 0.5 sq-cm.
- Lastly, the SPR-N instrument is a X-ray polarimeter to measure nonthermal/synchrotron
emissions in solar flares in the energy ranges 20-40, 40-60, and 60-100 keV.range at a
sensitivity of one microerg/sq-cm/sec.
A similar version of this observatory, CORONAS-I (KORONAS-I,
1994-041A) was launched in 1994, but its functionality was crippled by orientation
control failure a few months after launch.
.png)
