In-flight status of the X-ray observatory Suzaku

We report in-flight status of the X-ray detectors on board the Suzaku observatory, the 5th X-ray astronomy satellite of Japan launched on July 10, 2005. Suzaku is equipped with two types of instruments: one is the X-ray imaging spectrometers (XISs) and the other is hard X-ray detector (HXD). XIS utilizes the X-ray CCD camera in combination with the grazing-incidence X-ray telescope. HXD is a non-imaging, hybrid detector utilizing Si PIN diodes and GSO/BGO phoswich counters. Suzaku takes a low-earth, circular orbit with an altitude of 560 km and an inclination of 31 deg. This means that Suzaku goes through the south atlantic anomaly about 1/3 of its revolutions. This has a large impact on the in-flight performance of XIS and HXD, which is reported in detail in the present paper.