The Sax Mission for X-Ray Astronomy

The satellite for X-ray astronomy SAX, to be launched at the end of 1993, is devoted to systematic, integrated and comprehensive, studies of galactic and extra-galactic sources in the energy band 0.1–200 keV, and is under joint development by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace programs (NIVR), with the participation of SRU/SRON and SSD/ESTEC. The basic scientific objectives can be summarized as follows: — Broad band spectroscopy (E/△ E=12) from 0.1–10 keV with imaging resolution of 1 arcmin. — Continuum and line spectroscopy (E/△ E=5-20) in the energy range 3–200 keV. — Variability studies of bright source energy spectra on timescales from milliseconds t…