Jane R. Rigby

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) High-Energy X-Ray Mission

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Small Explorer mission that carried the first focusing hard X-ray (6-79 keV) telescope into orbit. It was launched on a Pegasus rocket into a low-inclination Earth orbit on June 13, 2012, from Reagan Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll. NuSTAR will carry out a two-year primary science mission. The NuSTAR observatory is composed of the X-ray instrument and the spacecraft. The NuSTAR spacecraft is three-axis stabilized with a single articulating solar array based on Orbital Sciences Corporations LEOStar-2 design. The NuSTAR science instrument consists of two co-aligned grazing incidence optics focusing on to two shielded solid state CdZnTe pixel detectors. The instrument was launched in a compact, stowed configuration, and after launch, a 10-meter mast was deployed to achieve a focal length of 10.15 m. The NuSTAR instrument provides sub-arcminute imaging with excellent spectral resolution over a 12-arcminute field of view. The NuSTAR observatory will be operated out of the Mission Operations Center (MOC) at UC Berkeley. Most science targets will be viewed for a week or more. The science data will be transferred from the UC Berkeley MOC to a Science Operations Center (SOC) located at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In this paper, we will describe the mission architecture, the technical challenges during the development phase, and the post-launch activities.

SPITZER VIEW ON THE EVOLUTION OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES FROM z = 0 TO z ~ 3

We use a 24 ?m-selected sample containing more than 8000 sources to study the evolution of star-forming galaxies in the redshift range from z = 0 to z ~ 3. We obtain photometric redshifts for most of the sources in our survey using a method based on empirically built templates spanning from ultraviolet to mid-infrared wavelengths. The accuracy of these redshifts is better than 10% for 80% of the sample. The derived redshift distribution of the sources detected by our survey peaks at around z = 0.6-1.0 (the location of the peak being affected by cosmic variance) and decays monotonically from z ~ 1 to z ~ 3. We have fitted infrared luminosity functions in several redshift bins in the range 0 1011 L?) to the total SFR density increases steadily from z ~ 0 up to z ~ 2.5, forming at least half of the newly born stars by z ~ 1.5. Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LTIR > 1012 L?) play a rapidly increasing role for z 1.3.

CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE AT 0.5 < Z < 2.5

We constrain the slope of the star formation rate (

Infrared power-law galaxies in the chandra deep field-south: Active galactic nuclei and ultraluminous infrared galaxies

\log\Psi

The 24 Micron Source Counts in Deep Spitzer Space Telescope Surveys

) to stellar mass (

Spitzer Power-Law Active Galactic Nucleus Candidates in the Chandra Deep Field-North

\log\mathrm{M_{\star}}

Unveiling a Population of AGNs Not Detected in X-Rays

) relation down to

Mid-infrared properties of X-ray sources in the extended groth strip

\log(\mathrm{M_{\star}/M_{\odot}})=8.4

The Population of Weak Mg II Absorbers. I. A Survey of 26 QSO HIRES/Keck Spectra* **

(

The Population of Weak Mg II Absorbers. II. The Properties of Single-Cloud Systems

\log(\mathrm{M_{\star}/M_{\odot}})=9.2