The MAXI Mission Overview and Schedule

摘要

Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) is an X-ray all-sky monitor, which will be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by a space shuttle crew in May 2009, to scan almost the entire sky once every 96 minutes for a mission life of two to five years. The detection sensitivity will be about 20 mCrab (5σ level) for one-orbit MAXI operation, 2-3 mCrab for one day, and 1 mCrab for one week, reaching a source confusion limit of 0.2 mCrab in half a year (Hiroi et al 2008). In this paper, brief descriptions are presented for the MAXI mission and payload , and three operation phases, 1) the launch-to-docking phase, 2) the initial in-orbit calibration phase, and 3) the routine operation phase. We also describes the MAXI data product and its release plan for public users.