A New Approach to X-ray Astronomy: Development and Observational Results of the CubeSat Observatory NinjaSat featuring Tomoshi Takeda (Hiroshima University, Japan)

Note that this seminar will take place at 9am Eastern Time / 3 pm CET and Daylight Savings Time has ended in the US. 

Hosted by: Sota Kimura (University of Tsukuba)

Abstract: In recent years, CubeSats, a class of small satellites consisting of several 10-cm cubic units, have been increasingly employed in astronomical missions. In X-ray astronomy, celestial sources must be observed from space to avoid attenuation of X-ray photons by the Earth's atmosphere. As a result, the advantages of CubeSats—such as their low cost and short development times—are gaining wider recognition, leading to an increasing number of CubeSat missions being planned. NinjaSat is the first Japanese 6U CubeSat observatory designed to observe bright X-ray sources, such as black holes and neutron stars. It was launched on November 11, 2023, by the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission and observed 32 X-ray sources during its two-year operation. We successfully demonstrated that CubeSat observations can provide valuable astronomical X-ray data, highlighting NinjaSat's pioneering role as a compact yet uniquely powerful observatory in time-domain astronomy. In this talk, I present an overview of NinjaSat, including the development of the gas X-ray detector, which is one of the most suitable choices for CubeSat applications, and student-led in-orbit operations. In addition, I present observational results of X-ray bursters, which are thought to be key sites for the production of proton-rich heavy nuclei.