University of Pennsylvania Astrophysics Special Seminar - Added

The Sun is intimately related with the objects in the solar system and it influences them including the earth in particular. The study of influence of solar variability, release of energy in the form of radiation and particles, on the planets is called Space Weather, which is currently a topic of general interest. The solar variability is observed at various time and spatial scales, which require probing the Sun in multi-wavelengths. However, probing the radiation from high temperature solar corona is possible from space employing instruments working in short wavelength such as UV, EUV and X-rays etc., and particles employing charge particle detectors. We present in brief detail the science and instrumentation of the “Solar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS)”, the first space-borne solar astronomy experiment of India, launched in 2003 by ISRO and deployed in geosynchronous orbit. This experiment employed Si and CZT semiconductor devices. We present satisfactory performance and few achievements of this mission. Very briefly we will also present our involvement in conceiving science and development of instrumentation for other space-borne experiments of the forthcoming Moon (Chandrayaan-2), Mars-2 and Aaditya (Sun) missions. Talk will be summarized at the end.