Grazing incidence optics for the X-ray astronomy mission SXO.

Following three X-ray astronomical satellites, Hakucho (1979), Tenma (1983), and Ginga (1987), the Japanese X-ray astronomers are planning an X-ray telescope mission called SXO in the early 1990's. The main project is X-ray spectroscopy with E/Delta E greater than 20 at 6 keV and with spatial resolution of about 1 arc min. A thin foil mirror is considered to cover the energy range up to 10 keV with high throughput. A position sensitive gas scintillation proportional counter and some types of solid state detector are studied as the focal plane instruments.