Peter Cheimets

Arcus: an ISS-attached high-resolution x-ray grating spectrometer

We present the design and scientific motivation for Arcus, an X-ray grating spectrometer mission to be deployed on the International Space Station. This mission will observe structure formation at and beyond the edges of clusters and galaxies, feedback from supermassive black holes, the structure of the interstellar medium and the formation and evolution of stars. The mission requirements will be R>2500 and >600 cm2 of effective area at the crucial O VII and O VIII lines, values similar to the goals of the IXO X-ray Grating Spectrometer. The full bandpass will range from 8-52Å (0.25-1.5 keV), with an overall minimum resolution of 1300 and effective area >150 cm2. We will use the silicon pore optics developed at cosine Research and proposed for ESA’s Athena mission, paired with off-plane gratings being developed at the University of Iowa and combined with MIT/Lincoln Labs CCDs. This mission achieves key science goals of the New Worlds, New Horizons Decadal survey while making effective use of the International Space Station (ISS).

SDO-AIA telescope design

The design of the 4 telescopes that make up the Solar Dynamics Observatory Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDOAIA) is described. This includes the optical design, optical mounting system, front aperture filters, and launch protection system. SDO-AIA is a study of taking a difficult telescope design and making four of them. We describe the technical challenges associated with the telescope mounting, mirror mounting, and the front aperture filter design and launch protection.

High-resolution grazing incidence telescope for the Solar-B observatory

The X-ray observations from the Yohkoh SXT provided the greatest step forward in our understanding of the solar corona in nearly two decades. We believe that the scientific objectives of the Solar-B mission can best be achieved with an X-ray telescope (XRT) similar to the SXT, but with significant improvements in spatial resolution and in temperature response that take into account the knowledge gained from Yohkoh. We present the scientific justification for this view, discuss the instrumental requirements that flow from the scientific objectives, and describe the instrumentation that will meet these requirements. XRT is a grazing-incidence (GI) modified Wolter I X-ray telescope, of 35 cm inner diameter and 2.7 m focal length. The 2048 X 2048 back-illuminated CCD has 13.5 (mu) pixels, corresponding to 1.0 arcsec and giving full Sun field of view. This will be the highest resolution GI X-ray telescope ever flown for Solar coronal studies, and it has been designed specifically to observe both the high and low temperature coronal plasma.

The reconnection and microscale (RAM) solar-terrestrial probe

A hot, magnetized plasma such as the solar corona has the property that much of the physics governing its activity takes place on remarkably small spatial and temporal scales, while the response to this activity occurs on large scales. Observations from SMM, TRACE, SOHO and Yohkoh have shown that typical solar active regions have loops ranging in temperature from 0.5 to 10 MK, and flares up to 40MK. The spatial and temporal domains involved have been heretofore inaccessible to direct observations from Earth, so that theory has relied heavily on extrapolations from more accessible regimes, and on speculation. The RAM Solar-Terrestrial Probe consists of a set of carefully selected imaging and spectroscopic instruments that enable definitive studies of the dynamics and energetics of the solar corona.

The design, development, and implementation of a solar environmental simulator (SES) for the SAO Faraday Cup on Solar Probe Plus

This paper describes the implementation of a solar simulator, know as the Solar Environment Simulator (SES), that can simulate solar flux levels up to those encountered at 9.8 solar radii. The paper outlines the design, and the challenges of realizing the SES. It also describes its initial uses for proving out the design of the Solar Winds Electrons, Alphas, and Protons (SWEAP) Faraday cup. The upcoming Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission requires that its in-situ plasma instrument (the Faraday Cup) survive and operate over an unprecedented range of temperatures. One of the key risk mitigation activities during Phase B has been to develop and implement a simulator that will enable thermal testing of the Faraday Cup under flight-like conditions. While still in the initial start-up, the SES has proven to be an instrumental component in the process of predicting the inflight performance of the SWEAP Faraday Cup. With near continuously variable power control above the threshold of 1.6kW/lamp up to approximately 6.5kW/lamp, the SES has been used to determine the system response to a wide range of incoming flux, thereby making it possible to correlate detailed thermal models to a high degree of certainty (see Ref. [1], Figure 1.1). The SES consists of a set of repurposed, and slightly re-designed standard movie projectors. The projectors have proven to be an economical and effective means to safely hold and control the xenon short-arc lamps that are the basis of the SES. This paper outlines the key challenges controlling the extremely high flux levels (~70w/cm^2) necessary to make the SES a useful test facility.

Focal plane CCD camera for the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) aboard SOLAR-B

We present scientific as well as engineering overview of the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) aboard the Japanese Solar-B mission to be launched in 2006, with emphasis on the focal plane CCD camera that employs a 2k x 2k back-thinned CCD. Characterization activities for the flight CCD camera made at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) are discussed in detail with some of the results presented.

Arcus: the x-ray grating spectrometer explorer (Conference Presentation)

Arcus, a Medium Explorer (MIDEX) mission, was selected by NASA for a Phase A study in August 2017. The observatory provides high-resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy in the 12-50 A bandpass with unprecedented sensitivity: effective areas of >350 cm^2 and spectral resolution >2500 at the energies of O VII and O VIII for z=0-0.3. The Arcus key science goals are (1) to measure the effects of structure formation imprinted upon the hot baryons that are predicted to lie in extended halos around galaxies, groups, and clusters, (2) to trace the propagation of outflowing mass, energy, and momentum from the vicinity of the black hole to extragalactic scales as a measure of their feedback and (3) to explore how stars, circumstellar disks and exoplanet atmospheres form and evolve. Arcus relies upon the same 12m focal length grazing-incidence silicon pore X-ray optics (SPO) that ESA has developed for the Athena mission; the focal length is achieved on orbit via an extendable optical bench. The focused X-rays from these optics are diffracted by high-efficiency Critical-Angle Transmission (CAT) gratings, and the results are imaged with flight-proven CCD detectors and electronics. The power and telemetry requirements on the spacecraft are modest. Arcus will be launched into an ~ 7 day 4:1 lunar resonance orbit, resulting in high observing efficiency, low particle background and a favorable thermal environment. Mission operations are straightforward, as most observations will be long (~100 ksec), uninterrupted, and pre-planned. The baseline science mission will be completed in <2 years, although the margin on all consumables allows for 5+ years of operation.

Image stabilization for Airborne Infrared Spectrometer

The Airborne Infrared Spectrometer (AIR-Spec) took measurements of five infrared coronal emission lines from on board a NSF/NCAR airplane during the solar eclipse in August 2017. An open-loop image stabilization system was implemented using a gyroscope and fast steering mirror; 90% of the 60 millisecond exposures had an RMS jitter below 4.6 arcseconds. To increase the exposure time to 1 second, a closed-loop system is proposed using a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller and an image cross-correlation algorithm. We predict that 100% of 1 second exposures will have an RMS jitter below 4.6 arcseconds. A detailed analysis of the proposed closed-loop stabilization system is presented.

An airborne infrared spectrometer for solar eclipse observations

This paper presents the design of an innovative solar spectrometer that will y on the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (GV HIAPER) during the 2017 solar eclipse. The airborne infrared spectrometer (AIR-Spec) is groundbreaking in two aspects: it will image infrared coronal emission lines that have never been measured, and it will bring high resolution imaging to GV HIAPER. The instrument development faces the challenges of achieving adequate resolution and signal-to-noise ratio in a compact package mounted to a noisy moving platform. To ensure that AIR-Spec meets its research goals, the instrument is undergoing pre-flight modeling and testing. The results are presented with reference to the instrument requirements.

On the alignment and focusing of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS)

The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) is a NASA sounding rocket instrument that is designed to observe soft X-ray emissions from 24 - 6.0 Å (0.5 - 2.0 keV energies) in the solar atmosphere. For the first time, high-temperature, low-emission plasma will be observed directly with 5 arcsecond spatial resolution and 22 mÅ spectral resolution. The unique optical design consists of a Wolter - I telescope and a 3-optic grazing- incidence spectrometer. The spectrometer utilizes a finite conjugate mirror pair and a blazed planar, varied line spaced grating, which is directly printed on a silicon substrate using e-beam lithography. The grating design is being finalized and the grating will be fabricated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Izentis LLC. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is producing the nickel replicated telescope and spectrometer mirrors using the same facilities and techniques as those developed for the ART-XC and FOXSI mirrors. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) will mount and align the optical sub-assemblies based on previous experience with similar instruments, such as the Hinode X-Ray Telescope (XRT). The telescope and spectrometer assembly will be aligned in visible light through the implementation of a theodolite and reference mirrors, in addition to the centroid detector assembly (CDA) - a device designed to align the AXAF-I nested mirrors. Focusing of the telescope and spectrometer will be achieved using the X-ray source in the Stray Light Facility (SLF) at MSFC. We present results from an alignment sensitivity analysis performed on the on the system and we also discuss the method for aligning and focusing MaGIXS.