The Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) on Solar Orbiter

The Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) is one of the ten instruments on board the scientific payload of ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission. STIX provides hard X-ray imaging spectroscopy in the 4–150 keV energy range, observing hard X-ray bremsstrahlung emission from the Sun. These observations provide diagnostics of the hottest thermal plasmas (> 10 MK) and information on the non-thermal energetic electrons accelerated above 10 keV during solar flares. STIX has a spectral resolution of 1 keV and employs the use of indirect bi-grid Fourier imaging to spatially locate hard X-ray emission. Given that STIX provides critical information about accelerated electrons at the Sun through hard X-ray diagnostics, it is a powerful contribution to the Solar Orbiter suite and has a significant role to explore the dynamics of solar inputs to the heliosphere. This chapter describes the STIX instrument, its design, objectives, and the first observations and outlines the new perspectives STIX provides over the mission lifetime of Solar Orbiter.