High-sensitivity wide-band X-ray spectroscopy is the key feature of the Suzaku X-ray observatory, launched on 2005 July 10. This paper summarizes the spacecraft, in-orbit performance, operations, and data processing that are related to observations. The scientific instruments, the high-throughput X-ray telescopes, X-ray CCD cameras, non-imaging hard X-ray detector are also described.

We present the design parameters, production process, and in-flight performance of the X-ray telescope (XRT) onboard Suzaku. The imaging capability is significantly improved over the ASCA XRT, which had half-power diameters of ${3\rlap {.}{}^{\mathrm {\prime }}6}$, to ${1\rlap {.}{}^{\mathrm {\prime }}8}$–${2\rlap {.}{}^{\mathrm {\prime }}3}$ for all four XRT-I modules. The optical axes are found to be distributed within a radius of ${1\rlap {.}{}^{\mathrm {\prime }}3}$, which makes the observation efficiency of all the XRTs more than 97% at the XIS-default observing position. The vignetting over the XIS field of view predicted via ray-tracing coincides with that measured for observations of the Crab Nebula to within $\sim 10\%$. Contemporaneous fits of a power law to all of the XIS spectra of the Crab Nebula taken at the two standard observing positions (XIS/HXD-default positions) gives a flux consistent with that obtained by Toor and Seward (1974, AJ, 79, 995) to within $\sim 2\%$. The pre-collimator on the top of each XRT module successfully reduces the intensity of the stray light from the $20'$ and $50'$-off directions down to the level of pre-flight expectations.

Supernova remnants ($=$ SNR) are suggested to be sites of cosmic-ray acceleration. In particular, it has been an issue of keen interest whether cosmic ray protons are being accelerated in a SNR which emits TeV $\gamma$-rays. A crucial observational test for this is to find dense molecular gas towards the SNR, because such molecular gas can best verify the existence of cosmic-ray protons via pion decay to $\gamma$-rays. Here, we show that new high-resolution mm-wave observations of interstellar CO molecule have revealed molecular gas at 1 kpc distance interacting with the TeV $\gamma$-ray SNR G 347.3$-$0.5, and that a molecular cloud of $\sim 200$ solar masses is clearly associated with the TeV $\gamma$-ray peak, providing strong evidence for proton acceleration. We have estimated the total energy of accelerated protons to be $\sim 1048 \,\mathrm{erg}$, which corresponds to an acceleration efficiency of $\sim 0.001$, posing an observational constraint on the proton acceleration.

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