Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer studied rapid changes in cosmic X-ray sources across timescales from microseconds to months. Its pointed instruments and all-sky monitor tracked black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and other compact systems over a broad X-ray energy range.
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Identity
- Aliases
- RXTEX-ray Timing ExplorerXTE
- Name
- Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
- Status
- completed
Details
- Astronauts
- -
- Description
- NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer studied rapid changes in cosmic X-ray sources across timescales from microseconds to months. Its pointed instruments and all-sky monitor tracked black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and other compact systems over a broad X-ray energy range.
- Destination
- Near-circular low Earth orbit at approximately 600 km altitude and 23° inclination for measuring rapid X-ray variability from black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, and other compact cosmic sources
- End Date
- 2012-01-05
- Launch Site
- Outcome
- RXTE completed sixteen years of observations, far exceeding its two-year requirement and five-year design goal. Its high-time-resolution measurements revealed millisecond variability near compact objects, characterized accretion flows and neutron-star oscillations, and left a mission-long public archive for high-energy astrophysics.
- Programs
- Start Date
- 1995-12-30
- Vehicle Families
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/rxte/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- July 18, 2026 at 14:57:15 UTC
- Updated Time
- August 24, 2026 at 05:06:23 UTC
- Image
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Other
- Affiliations
- Search Name
- Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer RXTE X-ray Timing Explorer XTE
- Space Stations
- -
- Vehicles