CORONAS programme


Complex Orbital Observations Near-Earth of Activity of the Sun, or CORONAS, was a Russian Solar observation satellite programme. Three satellites were launched: CORONAS-I, CORONAS-F, and CORONAS-Photon.

CORONAS-I

CORONAS-I was launched in 1994.
The satellites had 12 instrumenents:
  • TEREK-C - Solar XUV Telescope/Coronagraph
  • RES-C - Solar X-ray Spectral Polarimeter
  • DIOGENESS - Diagnostic of Energy Sources and Sinks in Flares
  • HELICON - Solar X-ray and gamma-ray Scintillation Spectrometer
  • IRIS - Solar Burst Spectrometer
  • SUFR-Sp-C - Solar UV Radiometer
  • VUSS - Vacuum UV Solar spectrum
  • DIFOS - Solar Flux Optical Photometer
  • SORS - Solar Radiospectrometer
  • SKL-particles - Solar Cosmic-ray Spectrometer Complex - particles
  • AVS - Amplitude-time Spectrum Analyser
  • SKL-rad - Solar Cosmic-ray Spectrometer Complex - radiation

    CORONAS-F

CORONAS-I was launched in 2001 and worked until 2005.
The satellites had 16 instrumenents:
  • TEREK-C - Solar XUV Telescope/Coronagraph
  • RES-C - Solar X-ray Spectral Polarimeter
  • DIOGENESS - Diagnostic of Energy Sources and Sinks in Flares
  • HELICON - Solar X-ray and gamma-ray Scintillation Spectrometer
  • IRIS - Solar Burst Spectrometer
  • SUFR-Sp-C - Solar UV Radiometer
  • VUSS - Vacuum UV Solar spectrum
  • DIFOS - Solar Flux Optical Photometer
  • SORS - Solar Radiospectrometer
  • SKL-particles - Solar Cosmic-ray Spectrometer Complex - particles
  • SPR-N - Solar X-ray Polarimeter
  • RESIK - X-ray Spectrometer
  • AVS - Amplitude-time Spectrum Analyser
  • RPS-1 - X-ray Semi-conductor Spectrometer
  • IMAP-5 - Three-axis Magnetometer
  • SKL-rad - Solar Cosmic-ray Spectrometer Complex - radiation

    CORONAS-Photon

CORONAS-Photon was launched on 30 January 2009, from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, aboard the final flight of the Tsyklon-3 rocket. On 1 December 2009 all scientific instruments on the satellite were turned off due to the problems with power supply that were caused by a design flaw. On 18 April 2010 the creators of the satellite announced it was lost "with a good deal of certainty".
The satellite had 11 instruments:
  • Natalya-2M-rad - High energy radiation spectrometer - radiation
  • RT-2 - Roentgen Telescope-2
  • Penguin-M - Hard X-ray polarimeter-spectrometer
  • Konus-RF - X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometer
  • BRM - Fast X-ray Monitor
  • PHOKA - Multi-channel ultraviolet monitor
  • TESIS - Telescope-spectrometer for imaging solar spectroscopy in X-rays
  • Electron-M-PESCA - Charged particle analyzer
  • STEP-F - Satellite telescope of electrons and protons
  • Natalya-2M-particles - High energy radiation spectrometer - particles
  • SM-8M Magnetometer