S. Watanabe

Fabrication of the ASTRO-E hard-x-ray detector

The Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) is one of the three instruments on the fifth Japanese cosmic X-ray satellite ASTRO-E, scheduled for launch in January 2000. The HXD covers a wide energy range of 10-600 keV, using 16 identical GSO/BGO phoswich-counter modules, of which the low-energy efficiency is greatly improved by adding 2 m-thick silicon PIN diodes. Production of the HXD has been completed and pre-flight calibration is now in progress. The design concept of the HXD sensor, detail of the production process, and a brief summary of the measured performance is reported.

Low Frequency plasma wave Analyzer (LFA) onboard the PLANET-B spacecraft

The Low Frequency plasma wave Analyzer, LFA, on board the PLANET-B spacecraft has been developed to measure the Martian plasma waves. Two orthogonal electric dipole wire antennas, 50 m tip-to-tip, in the spacecraft spin plane are used to measure plasma waves, dc electric fields, and the spacecraft potential relative to the ambient plasma. The LFA has capability to measure the wave spectrum in the band from 10 Hz to 32 kHz, and to capture the signal waveform in the band from dc to 32 kHz by using a 4 MByte memory. The LFA scientific objectives are to explore the following: (1) Macroscopic plasma environment and boundaries from the solar wind to the ionosphere, (2) Microscopic plasma phenomena induced by the interaction between the solar wind and the Martian atmosphere and the moon Phobos, (3) Generation and propagation of electromagnetic waves, (4) Plasma densities and waves in the nightside ionosphere and tail, and (5) Comparison of Martian plasma waves with those of other planets such as non-magnetized Venus and magnetized Earth.

Kanazawa-SAT^3: micro-satellite mission for monitoring x-ray transients coincide with gravitational wave events

We are developing a micro satellite, Kanazawa-SAT3 , to be launched in FY2019. The main purpose of the mission is to localize X-ray transients coincide with gravitational wave events, e.g. short gamma-ray bursts, and to investigate the formation of extreme space-time of black holes and the origin of relativistic jet. We are developing a wide field X-ray imaging detector as a mission instrument. It has a couple of 1-dimensional imaging systems with a random coded aperture mask and silicon strip detectors. In this paper, we introduce the mission overview and the current status of Kanazawa-SAT3 and the flight model performance.

Development of digital system for the wide-field x-ray imaging detector aboard Kanazawa-SAT3

We are planning to launch a micro satellite, Kanazawa-SAT3 , at the end of FY2018 to localize X-ray transients associated with gravitational wave sources. Now we are testing a prototype model of wide-field Xray imaging detector named T-LEX (Transient Localization EXperiment). T-LEX is an orthogonally distributed two sets of 1-dimensional silicon strip detectors with coded aperture masks, and covers more than 1 steradian field of view in the energy range of 1 – 20 keV. Each dimension has 512 readout electrodes (totally 1,024 channels), and they are read out with application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) controlled by two onboard FPGAs. Moreover, each FPGA calculates the cross correlation between the X-ray intensity and mask patterns every 64 msec, makes a histogram of lightcurves and energy spectra, and also plays a role of telemetry/command interface to mission CPU. In this paper, we report an overview of digital electronics system. Especially, we focus on the high-speed imaging processor on FPGA and demonstrate its performance as an X-ray imaging system.