SuperAGILE at launch

SuperAGILE is the hard X-ray (15-45 keV) imager for the gamma-ray mission AGILE, currently scheduled for launch in early 2007. It is based on 4 Si-microstrip detectors, with a total geometric area of 1444 cm2 (max effective area 230 cm2), equipped with 4 one-dimensional coded masks. The 4 detectors are perpendicularly oriented, in order to provide pairs of orthogonal one-dimensional images of the X-ray sky. The field of view of each 1-D detector is 107° x 68°, at zero response, with an overlap in the central 68° x 68° area. The angular resolution on axis is 6 arcmin. We present here the current status of the hardware development and the scientific perspective.© (2006) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.