MSV-2035 Astronomy Document - Inside Design - FINAL - FINAL

Astronomy & Astrophysics 64 4.2.3 TIFRBalloon Facility Since 1998, the TIFR 100-cm balloon-borne telescope and the Japanese Fabry-Perot single-pixel spectrometer (Spectral Resolution 2000) as part of the TIFR-Japan collaboration have contributed significantly in the field of far-IR astronomy and star formation. The far-IR [CII] line at 158 m is the best tracer of star-forming molecular clouds. To investigate the role of cloud-cloud collision in high-mass star formation, this facility offers an excellent platformwith relatively high spectral resolution observations of the [CII] line velocities of putative colliding clouds. To cover a typical star-forming region in our Galaxy, one requires high speed of spectral mapping. Among the existing astronomical observational facilities in the world, only balloon telescopes can realize both relatively reasonable spectral/spatial resolution and sufficiently large area [CII] observations. Several balloon flights have been launched since 1998 with the latest being the past three consecutive campaigns (2017-2019). The Japanese team is now developing a new [CII] spectrometer which has spectral resolution 5 times higher than the current spectrometer and a 5x5 new array detector replacing a single pixel detector. The former would enable us to measure the difference in the velocities of the associated clouds, while the latter is to spatially resolve the filamentary structure through the deconvolution technique. The spectrometer will be installed in the balloon-borne telescope system after refurbishing the system and checking its interface with the instrument. This experiment will be carried out from TIFR National Balloon Facility at Hyderabad which offers a unique blend of expertise attained over decades of successful balloon experiments in the frontiers of Astronomy, Astrobiology, High Energy Physics and Atmospheric Sciences. These indigenous facilities have led to many PhDs inAstronomy and also helped train many engineers in world class technology. The TIFR Balloon Facility is also involved in many of the test programmes of ISRO for space qualification of modules to be used in future satellites. This facility can also be used for the development of any space-based astronomy payloads. 4.2.4 X-ray andUVAstronomy fromSpace There have been several small payloads, particularly in the X-ray wavebands, that have been launched using ISRO's satellites. These payloads were launched for a few, very specific experiments, with short lifetimes. AstroSat, India's first observatory class satellite dedicated forAstronomy was launched in 2015.AstroSat is capable of simultaneous measurements in a broad energy band from far Ultra-violet to high energy X-rays with the help of four co-aligned scientific payloads. designed and developed by multiple research institutes from India in collaboration with ISRO centers. The hard X-ray and the soft X-ray payloads (LAXPC, CZTI, SXT) and the UV imaging telescope (UVIT) were realized by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru and the Inter-University Center ofAstronomy andAstrophysics, Pune, in collaboration with the Center for SpaceAstronomy, Canada and the University of Leicester, UK. The fifth payload, the Scanning SkyMonitor was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation. AstroSat has recently completed eight years of its designed life and continues to produce data of high quality. Although initially envisaged as a 5-year mission, this space observatory is expected to be in operation for a fewmore years to come. AstroSat is operated as a proposal based observatory and the observation time is open to astronomy community of the entire world. Currently, AstroSat is serving close to 1500 registered users from 48 countries. In addition to MEGA SCIENCE VISION-2035