Einstein Observatory (HEAO-2) was the first fully imaging X-ray telescope put into space and the second of NASA's three High Energy Astrophysical Observatories. Named HEAO B before launch, the observatory's name was changed to honor Albert Einstein upon its successfully attaining orbit. Project conception and design The High Energy Astronomy Observatory (HEAO) program originated in the late 1960's within the Astronomy Missions Board at NASA, which recommended the launch of a series of satellite observatories dedicated to high-energy astronomy. In 1970, NASA requested proposals for experiments to fly on these observatories, and a team organized by Riccardo Giacconi, Herbert Gursky, George W. Clark, Elihu Boldt, and Robert Novick responded in October 1970 with a proposal for an x-ray telescope. NASA approved four missions in the HEAO program, with the x-ray telescope planned to be the third mission. One of the three missions of the HEAO program was cancelled in February 1973, due to budgetary pressures within NASA that briefly resulted in the cancellation of the entire program, and the x-ray observatory was moved up to become the second mission of the program, receiving the designation HEAO B (later HEAO-2), and scheduled to launch in 1978. HEAO-2 was constructed by TRW Inc. and shipped to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL for testing in 1977. History HEAO-2 was launched on November 13, 1978, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas-Centaur SLV-3D booster rocket into a near-circular orbit at an altitude of approximately 470 km and orbital inclination of 23.5 degrees. The satellite was renamed Einstein upon achieving orbit, in honor of the centenary of the scientist's birth. Einstein ceased operations on April 26 1981, when the exhaustion of the satellite's thruster fuel supply rendered the telescope inoperable. The satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere and burned up on March 25, 1982. Instrumentation Einstein carried a single large grazing-incidence focusing X-ray telescope that provided unprecedented levels of sensitivity. It had instruments sensitive in the 0.15 to 4.5 keV energy range. Four instruments were installed in the satellite, mounted on a carousel arrangement that could be rotated into the focal plane of the telescope: The High Resolution Imaging camera (HRI) was a digital x-ray camera covering the central 25 arcmin of the focal plane. The HRI was sensitive to x-ray emissions between 0.15 and 3 keV and capable of ~2 arcsec spatial resolution. The Imaging Proportional Counter (IPC) was a proportional counter covering the