Wikipedia
The International Astrophysical Observatory "GRANAT" (usually known as Granat; ), was a Soviet (later Russian) space observatory developed in collaboration with France, Denmark and Bulgaria. It was launched on 1 December 1989 aboard a Proton rocket and placed in a highly eccentric four-day orbit, of which three were devoted to observations. It operated for almost nine years.
In September 1994, after nearly five years of directed observations, the gas supply for its attitude control was exhausted and the observatory was placed in a non-directed survey mode. Transmissions finally ceased on 27 November 1998.
With seven different instruments on board, Granat was designed to observe the universe at energies ranging from X-ray to gamma ray. Its main instrument, SIGMA, was capable of imaging both hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray sources. The PHEBUS instrument was meant to study gamma-ray bursts and other transient X-Ray sources. Other experiments such as ART-P were intended to image X-Ray sources in the 35 to 100 keV range. One instrument, WATCH, was designed to monitor the sky continuously and alert the other instruments to new or interesting X-Ray sources. The ART-S spectrometer covered the X-ray energy range while the KONUS-B and TOURNESOL experiments covered both the X-ray and gamma ray spectrum.
Granat was a Soviet space observatory. Granat may also refer to
- Granat (surname)
- Cape Granat in Antarctica
- Granat Encyclopedic Dictionary, a Russian encyclopedic dictionary
- ZKS Granat Skarżysko, a Polish football club
Granat is the surname of the following people
- Adrian Granat (born 1991), Swedish boxer
- Balázs Granát (born 1985), Hungarian football player
- Cary Granat, American entertainer and film producer
- Endre Granat (born 1937), American violinist
- Erik Granat (born 1995), Swedish football player
- Jiří Granát (born 1955), Czech tennis player
- Vladimir Granat (born 1987), Russian football player