A Broadband Imaging X-ray All-sky Survey, or ABRIXAS, was a space-based German X-ray telescope. It was launched on 28 April 1999 in a Kosmos-3M launch vehicle from Kapustin Yar, Russia, into Earth orbit. The orbit had a periapsis of 549.0 kilometres (341.1 mi), an apoapsis of 598.0 kilometres (371.6 mi), an inclination of 48.0° and an eccentricity of 0.00352, giving it a period of 96 minutes.^[3]

The telescope's battery was accidentally overcharged and destroyed three days after the mission started. When attempts to communicate with the satellite – while its solar panels were illuminated by sunlight – failed, the $20 million project was abandoned.^[4] ABRIXAS decayed from orbit on 31 October 2017.

The eROSITA telescope was based on the design of the ABRIXAS observatory.^[5] eROSITA was launched on board the Spektr-RG space observatory on 13 July 2019 from Baikonur to be deployed at the second Lagrange point (L2).^[6]

• German space programme

• Hahn, Hermann-Michael (1 March 1997). "Warten auf ABRIXAS" [Waiting for ABRIXAS]. wissenschaft.de (in German). Retrieved 2024-07-15.
• "The ABRIXAS Mission". Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Archived from the original on 3 May 2006. Retrieved 2024-07-15.