BackForwardInstrument:  HELICON 

Instrument details
Acronym HELICON
Full name Solar X-ray and gamma-ray Scintillation Spectrometer
Purpose To study solar flare processes in ranges of the soft X-ray to gamma-ray region
Short description Scintillation spectrometer for the energy range 0.01-8 MeV, using windows of 10-50 keV, 50-250 keV and 250-800 keV. Resolving power: 12
Background Consolidated technology
Scanning Technique Sun pointing from a LEO high-inclination drifting orbit
Resolution N/A (full disk)
Coverage / Cycle Full Sun disk integral at about 1-s rate
Mass 35 kg Power 10 W Data Rate

 

Providing Agency Roscosmos
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 1994 to 2005
Last update: 2017-05-17
Detailed characteristics
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Solar and space environment monitors
  • Solar activity monitor
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 2
  • Solar magnetograph, solar EUV/X-ray imagery and EUV/X-ray irradiance, both on the Earth-Sun line and off the Earth-Sun line
  • Solar X-ray spectrometer [from L1, GEO, LEO]
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Solar X-ray flux spectrum
  • Solar gamma-ray flux spectrum
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.
VariableRelevance for measuring this variableOperational limitationsExplanation
Solar gamma-ray flux spectrum*2 - very highNo specific limitation.Moderate dynamic range, but associated to X-ray observation
Solar X-ray flux spectrum*3 - highNo specific limitation.Coarse spectral resolution, wide dynamic range