The MIRAX X-ray astronomy transient mission

The Monitor e Imageador de Raios-X (MIRAX) is a small (similar to 250 kg) X-ray astronomy satellite mission designed to monitor the central Galactic plane for transient phenomena. With a field-of-view of similar to 1000 square degrees and an angular resolution of similar to 6 arcmin, MIRAX will provide an unprecedented discovery-space coverage to study X-ray variability in detail, from fast X-ray novae to long-term (similar to several months) variable phenomena. Chiefly among MIRAX science objectives is its capability of providing simultaneous complete temporal coverage of the evolution of a large number of accreting black holes, including a detailed characterization of the spectral state transitions in these systems. MIRAX's instruments will include a soft Xray (2-18 keV) and two hard X-ray (10-200 keV) coded-aperture imagers, with sensitivities of similar to 5 and similar to 2.6 mCrab/day, respectively. The hard X-ray imagers will be built at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Brazil, in close collaboration with the Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences (CASS) of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Institut fur Astronomie und Astrophysik of the University of Tubingen (IAAT) in Germany; UCSD will provide the crossed-strip position-sensitive (0.5-mm spatial resolution) CdZnTe (CZT) hard X-ray detectors. The soft X-ray camera, provided by the Space Research Organization Netherlands (SRON), will be the spare flight unit of the Wide Field Cameras that flew on the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX. MIRAX is an approved mission of the Brazilian Space Agency (Agencia Espacial Brasileira - AEB) and is scheduled to be launched in 2011 in a low-altitude (similar to 550 km) circular equatorial orbit. In this paper we present recent developments in the mission planning and design, as well as Monte Carlo simulations performed on the GEANT-based package MGGPOD environment (Weidenspointner et al. 2004) and new algorithms for image digital processing. Simulated images of the central Galactic plane as it would be seen by MIRAX are shown.