CORONAS-F (also known as KORONAS-F, and AUS-SM-KF) is a Russian solar observatory that
was launched by a Tsiklon 3 rocket from Plesetsk at 08:00 UT on 31 July 2001. The 2,260 kg (with fuel)
spacecraft will be pointing toward Sun within 10 arc-minutes to conduct a variety of observations.
In broad categories, it carries X-ray monitors to locate sources within 1 arc-sec, radio receivers
to measure flux and polarization, and particle counters.

The DIFOS instrument (Investigator: V. N.
Oraevsky, IZMIRAN) is to monitor fluctuations in light intensity in six optical bands (350, 500, 650,
850, 1,100, and 1.500 nanometer) at a precision of one part in a million. The analysis will reveal a
spectrum of normal mode seismic oscillations in the Sun.

The SORS instrument (Investigators: S. A.
Pulinets, IZMIRAN, and Z. Kloss, CBK-PAN) will monitor solar radio bursts of II, III, and IV types,
in the range 0.1-30 MHz, with 0.5 microvolt sensitivity and through 400 frequency channels, with a
full spectrum enabled in three seconds.

The ZENIT instrument (Investigator: V. N. Oraevsky, IZMIRAN)
is a coronograph to monitor the corona out to six solar radii in the 750-850 nm band, at a resolution
of 1 arc-min. A full scan is done in less than a minute.

The SUFR instrument (Investigator: T. V.
Kazachevskaya, IAG) is a UV radiometer in the 0.1-130 nm band to capture the full disk emission
from the Sun, in the dynamic range 0.1-30 erg/sq-cm/sec.

The VUSS instrument (Investigator: A. A.
Nousinov, IAG) is designed to monitor the intensity of full-disk, 121.6 nm Lyman-Alpha line in a
band of 5 nm width, with a dynamic range of 0.1-30 erg/sq-cm/sec.

The DIAGENESS instrument
(Investigators: Y. Silvester, CBK-PAN, and S. Boldyrev, IZMIRAN) is to scan the Sun's active regions
and flares at five arc-sec resolution in the bands 29.601-33.915, 49.807-53.721, 61.126-67.335 nm at
a tempral resolution of 0.1-10 seconds. It is also to monitor the full disk X-ray emissions in the
bands 2-8 keV, and 10-160 keV at a temporal resolution of about one second.

The RESIK instrument
(Investigator: Y. Silvester, CBK-PAB, and S. Boldyrev, IZMIRAN) is a bent crystal X-ray spectrometer
to monitor the bands 11.23-12.93, 12.74-14.42, 14.36-16.30, 16.53-20.29, 21.54-24.45, 24.80-30.43,
33.69-38.79, 38.21-43.26, and 49.60-60.86 nm. The first seven bands pertain, respectively, to
emissions from Ar, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe, K, Ni, and the last is a continuum.

The IRIS experiment
(Investigator: Kocharov, PTI) aims to monitor hard X-ray flares in the 2.0-200 keV energy range
at temporal resolution of 0.01-2.5 seconds, with a sensitivity of 10 nanoergs/sq-cm/sec.
The sensitivity in the 2-15 keV is high enough to capture microflares and precursors in a number
of small width channels.

The HELIKON instrument (Investigator: E. P. Mazets, PTI) is to capture
high energy X-rays and Gamma rays in the range 10 keV-8 MeV. It carries two detectors, one pointing
to the Sun and the other in the anti-solar direction to monitor the energy range in 128 channels,
and with 4,096 channels to cover the lower range of 10 keV-1.0 MeV.

The SKL instrument
(Investigator: S. N. Kuznetsov, NIIYaF-MSU) has three components. The SONG is to measure solar Gamma
rays in the 0.03-100 MeV band through a total of 250 channels, the neutrons in the range 3.0-100 MeV
through five channels, and electrons in the 11-108 MeV range through six channels. The second component,
MKL is to capture protons in the range 1-300 MeV, electrons in the 0.5-12 MeV, protons at >10 MeV,
and electrons at >1.3 MeV. The third component, SKI-3 is to ascertain the chemical composition in
the Z = 1-10 group in the 1.5-20 MeV ions. It has a channel for 1.5-19 MeV protons.

The RES-K instrument (Investogator: I. A. Zhitnik (LPI) is a X-ray spectroheliograph to provide high
resolution images of the solar disk using the emission lines of FeXXIV and FeXXV in the 18.5
-18.7 nm, and the MgXII line in the 84.1-84.3 nm range. Images in the emission lines covering
1800-2050 nm and 2850-3350 nm will also be obtained by scanning the range in widths of 0.3 nm.
The images will be at a spatial resolution of six arc-sec. Each full-disk image is to be produced
in about six seconds.

The RPS instrument (Investigator: V. M. Pankov, IKI, and Yu. D. Kotov, MEPHI)
is an X-ray spectrometer covering the 3-30 keV band in steps of 1.5 keV. The range includes the Fe55
line at 5.9 keV. The detector width is 0.5 sq-cm.

Lastly, the SPR-N instrument (Investigator: I.
Sobelman, FIAN, and S. Kuznetsov, NIIYAF) is a X-ray polarimeter to measure nonthermal/synchrotron
emissions in solar flares in the energy ranges 20-40, 40-60, and 60-100 keV range at a sensitivity
of one microerg/sq-cm/sec.

More details may be obtained via
http://www.izmiran.rssi.ru/projects/CORONAS/F/. CORONAS is an international project prepared in
cooperation between Russian and Ukranian space agencies and Academies of sciences. Taking part in
the project are also Poland, Germany, Slovakia, France, United Kingdom and USA.

A similar version
of this observatory, CORONAS-I (KORONAS-I, 1994-041A) was launched in 1994, but its functionality
was crippled by orientation control failure a few months after launch.