A brief description of observational results from the supersoft X-ray detector aboard Shenzhou-2

Observational results from the supersoft X-ray detector (SD) aboard the spacecraft Shenzhou-2 are briefly described. The resultspertain to cosmic γ-ray bursts solar x-ray bursts, high-energy charged particles and soft X-ray background radiation. The detector is a proportional counter with a polypropylene thin-film window of 50 mm diameter, it operates in the energy range 0.23–3.0keV covered by six energy channels. Two grades of time resolution are used: 40 ms for recording burst events and 520 ms when there is no triggering signal resulted from a burst event. Figures 1 and 2 show the light curves and energy spectra of two cosmic γ-ray bursts (starting time 2001 Jan 17, 09:37:25.21 UT and 2001 Mar 9, 12:33:55.692 UT), and Figures 3 and 4, the results on two solar X-ray burst (2001 Apr 6, 19:14:09.11 UT, and 2001 May 20, 06:02:12.58 UT). The detector records the ambient high-energy charged particles when there is no burst event and the shutter of the window is closed. 110 data sets of high-energy charged particles along the spacecraft orbit have been collected. As examples, the variations of the particle counting rate along the orbit are shown in Figs. 6a, 6b, 8e, 8f and 7. More than 10 events of particle precipitation induced by solar proton events have also been recorded, some of which are displayed in Figs.6c–6f and 7. Some of the data of soft X-ray background radiation shown in Fig. 8 were obtained when the shutter was open, and they are important for the data processing of the burst events.