Comparision of Missions: Strengths of Suzaku

With the launches of Chandra in July 1999 and XMM-Newton in December 1999, X-ray astronomy has entered a new golden age.

So why are X-ray astronomers so eager for data from Suzaku?

It's because different scientific investigations need different scientific tools. Sure, we would all like to make a tool that can do many things - and Chandra and XMM-Newton certainly can. But if you want a tool that can do everything, you'll find that it is very expensive to make, very heavy (meaning expensive to launch), and perhaps too complicated to be reliable.

So when scientists design a new satellite, they have to make difficult choices - how much capabilities should we cram into one mission? Should we optimize the design for lower energy X-rays or for higher energy X-rays? Is higher spectral resolution more important than higher effective area? Have we been too ambitious, making the mission too expensive, or have we not been ambitious enough, resulting in a mission that can't perform the needed observations well?

Individual scientists with different research goals want different set of capabilities. Project leaders have to balance these different needs and different technological constraints to create a successful mission.

Strengths of Chandra

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