NuSTAR ground calibration: The Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility (RaMCaF)

Brejnholt, Nicolai; Christensen, Finn Erland; Jakobsen, Anders Clemen; Hailey, Charles J.; Koglin, Jason E.; Blaedel, Kenneth L.; Stern, Marcela; Thornhill, Doug; Sleator, Clio; Zhang, Shuo; Craig, William W.; Madsen, Kristin K.; Decker, Todd A.; Pivovaroff, M. J.; Vogel, Julia K.

doi:10.1117/12.894659

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…An overview of its use for the NuSTAR flight optics calibration is presented in these proceedings (Brejnholt et al, "NuSTAR ground calibration: The Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility (RaMCaF)", SPIE 8147- 16, 2011). 17 It describes the facility setup for the NuSTAR flight optics and an overview of the types of calibration measurements that were performed. It also illustrates the optics alignment procedure and modeling of small mounting distortions that occurred during the ground calibration which are important to second order when evaluating the ground calibration data, but will not be present in space.…”

Section: X-ray Calibration Measurements At the Rainwater Memorial Calmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, a slight temporary asymmetry in the PSF is present for the ground calibration measurements due to gravitational sag (~1 mdeg) and the alignment struts introducing a parabolic bend in the optic mandrel (~2 mdeg) that acts over all of the mirror layers. 17 The fit range of -25 < X < 15 mm was used to avoid contamination of single bounce Xrays. The HPD was calculated from the fit parameters for an infinite focal plane.…”

Section: One-dimensional Profile Measurements Of the Psf For Each 60 mentioning

confidence: 99%

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First results from the ground calibration of the NuSTAR flight optics

Koglin

Barrière

et al. 2011

SPIE Proceedings

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NuSTAR is a hard X-ray satellite experiment to be launched in 2012. Two optics with 10.15 m focal length focus Xrays with energies between 5 and 80 keV onto CdZnTe detectors located at the end of a deployable mast. The FM1 and FM2 flight optics were built at the same time based on the same design and with very similar components, and thus the performance of both is expected to be very similar. We provide an overview of calibration data that is being used to build an optics response model for each optic and describe initial results for energies above 10 keV from the ground calibration of the flight optics. From a preliminary analysis of the data, our current best determination of the overall HPD of both the FM1 and FM2 flight optics is 52", and nearly independent of energy. The statistical error is negligible, and a preliminary estimate of the systematic error is of order 4". The as-measured effective area and HPD meet the toplevel NuSTAR mission sensitivity requirements.

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Section: X-ray Calibration Measurements At the Rainwater Memorial Calmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: One-dimensional Profile Measurements Of the Psf For Each 60 mentioning

confidence: 99%

First results from the ground calibration of the NuSTAR flight optics

Koglin

Barrière

et al. 2011

SPIE Proceedings

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“…Facility performance [17] and initial results from the flight calibrations [18] will be presented in August 2011 at the SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego, CA.…”

Section: Ramcaf Now and Tomorrowmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility for X-Ray Optics

Brejnholt

Christensen

Hailey

et al. 2011

X-Ray Optics and Instrumentation

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The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will carry the first focusing hard X-ray (5-80 keV) telescope to orbit. The ground calibration of the optics posed a challenge as the need to suppress finite source distance effects over the full optic and the energy range of interest were unique requirements not met by any existing facility. In this paper we present the requirements for the NuSTAR optics ground calibration, and how the Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility, RaMCaF, is designed to meet the calibration requirements. The nearly 175 m long beamline sports a 48 cm diameter 5-100 keV X-ray beam and is capable of carrying out detailed studies of large diameter optic elements, such as the NuSTAR optics, as well as flat multilayer-coated Silicon wafers.

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“…The strength of the on-ground calibration data set, compared to in-orbit data, derives from these subgroup measurements, where only a small fraction of the optic is investigated, effectively improving the resolution of the ORM validation. Detailed accounts of the calibration approach and hardware are available from Brejnholt et al 2 , Brejnholt et al 3 and Koglin et al 9 .…”

Section: On-ground Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The on-ground calibration of the two multilayer coated flight optics was carried out at the Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility for X-ray optics (RaMCaF) 2,3 at Nevis Laboratories in New York. The multilayer coating was laid down at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space) 4 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NuSTAR on-ground calibration: II. Effective area

Brejnholt¹,

Christensen²,

Westergaard³

et al. 2012

SPIE Proceedings

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The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray (NuSTAR) was launched in June 2012 carrying the first focusing hard X-ray (5 − 80 keV) optics to orbit. The multilayer coating was carried out at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space). In this article we introduce the NuSTAR multilayer reference database and its implementation in the NuSTAR optic response model. The database and its implementation is validated using on-ground effective area calibration data and used to estimate in-orbit performance.

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NuSTAR ground calibration: The Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility (RaMCaF)

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

First results from the ground calibration of the NuSTAR flight optics

First results from the ground calibration of the NuSTAR flight optics

The Rainwater Memorial Calibration Facility for X-Ray Optics

NuSTAR on-ground calibration: II. Effective area

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