1980 A Japanese delegation visits the University to invite collaboration in their ASTRO-C satellite project. Given the termination of the Skylark rocket programme and the Ariel satellite series this new opportunity is very timely.
Dr Jeff Hoffman, former researcher in the X-ray Astronomy Group, is selected as a NASA astronaut to fly on the Space Shuttle.
Ariel 5 ceases operation as control gas runs out, completing a highly successful 6-year mission.
1983 EXOSAT, Europe’s first mission in X-ray astronomy, with major involvement from Leicester, is successfully placed into a deep-space orbit on a US Delta rocket. The late decision to switch from the as- yet-unproven Ariane launcher to a Delta rocket was pushed by Leicester.
1987 First Anglo-Japanese satellite ASTRO-C is successfully launched from the (5 Feb) Kagashima Space Centre on board an MS 2 rocket, and re-named GINGA in orbit. The main payload is a sensitive X-ray camera designed and built at Leicester University.
1988 Leicester University wins a leading role in the first major space science collaboration between Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Leicester team will work with scientists from Italy to build the JET-X Telescope for the Spectrum-X mission, an early outcome of ‘glasnost’, and the ending of the cold war.
1990 ROSAT launched (June 1). ROSAT’s payload included the main (German) X-ray telescope operated in the soft X-ray band with an EUV capability provided by the Leicester-led ROSAT EUV telescope and Wide Field Camera. [added by MGW]
1991 The Japanese X-ray Observatory, GINGA, carrying the largest-ever X-ray (31 Oct) camera, designed and built in Leicester, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere to-day, after 4 and a half years of near-perfect operation.
1993 Second National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) held at Leicester
1993 Leicester University scientists report on observations of the Hyades Star Cluster, a group of stars only a tenth as old as the Sun, with the ROSAT X-ray satellite. Their findings suggest the Sun would have been much more active when younger, making life on the inner planets (including the Earth) impossible.
1999 University scientists receive a major boost with the successful launch on Ariane 5 (10 Dec) of the world’s most powerful X-ray Observatory. The 3-tonne ESA mission named XMM-Newton is equipped with 3 large telescopes and sensitive X-ray cameras, the latter built in Leicester.
2000 First light for XMM-Newton EPIC cameras (January)
2004 Swift (US-Italian-UK mission) launched from KSC on Delta rocket (November 20)
2005 First localisation and redshift of a short Gamma-Ray Burst GRB050509B at z=0.225
2006 National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) held at Leicester
2007 2XMM catalogue of serendipitous X-ray sources detected in XMM-Newton observations
released (August). 2XMM becomes the largest X-ray object catalogue ever compiled.
2008 First naked-eye GRB080319B – most distant object visible to the naked-eye
2009 Swift discovers most distant object in Universe: GRB 090423 at z=8.2
(please suggest some more highlights!)
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