Following a successful program to investigate the physics of ultra-high-pressure proportional counters, a counter array has been developed for hard X-ray astronomy. A parallel investigation has evaluated the performance of a large-area phoswich scintillator detector for the same purpose. The two detectors have been integrated in a balloon-borne payload, the Astrophysical X-ray Experimental Laboratory (AXEL). This paper describes the instrumentation aboard the payload.

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