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Performance of NICER Flight X-Ray ConcentratorNeutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) is a NASA instrument to be onboard International Space Station, which is equipped with 56 pairs of an X-ray concentrator (XRC) and a silicon drift detector for high timing observations. The XRC is based on an epoxy replicated thin aluminum foil X-ray mirror, similar to those of Suzaku and ASTRO-H (Hitomi), but only a single stage parabolic grazing incidence optic. Each has a focal length of 1.085 m and a diameter of 105 mm, with 24 confocally aligned parabolic shells. Grazing incident angles to individual shells range from 0.4 to 1.4 deg. The flight 56 XRCs have been completed and successfully delivered to the payload integration. All the XRC was characterized at the NASA/GSFC 100-m X-ray beamline using 1.5 keV X-rays (some of them are also at 4.5 keV). The XRC performance, effective area and point spread function, was measured by a CCD camera and a proportional counter. The average effective area is about 44 sq cm at 1.5 keV and about 18 sq cm at 4.5 keV, which is consistent with a micro-roughness of 0.5 nm from individual shell reflectivity measurements. The XRC focuses about 91% of X-rays into a 2mm aperture at the focal plane, which is the NICER detector window size. Each XRC weighs only 325 g. These performance met the project requirement. In this paper, we will present summary of the flight XRC performance as well as co-alignment results of the 56 XRCs on the flight payload as it is important to estimate the total effective for astronomical observations.
Document ID
20170006120
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Okajima, Takashi
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Soong, Yang
(Universities Space Research Association Columbia, MD, United States)
Balsamo, Erin R.
(Kyoto Univ. Japan)
Enoto, Teruaki
(Maryland Univ. Baltimore County Baltimore, MD, United States)
Olsen, Larry
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Koenecke, Richard
(Adnet Systems, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Lozipone, Larry
(SGT, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Kearney, John
(SGT, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Fitzsimmons, Sean
(SGT, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Numata, Ai
(SGT, Inc. Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Kenyon, Steven J.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Arzoumanian, Zaven
(Universities Space Research Association Columbia, MD, United States)
Gendreau, Keith
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
July 6, 2017
Publication Date
July 25, 2016
Publication Information
Publication: SPIE Proceedings
Publisher: SPIE
Volume: 9905
ISSN: 0277-786X
Subject Category
Astronomy
Instrumentation And Photography
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN43814
Meeting Information
Meeting: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016 Conference
Location: Edinburgh
Country: United Kingdom
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: July 1, 2016
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG17PT01A
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG12PL17C
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG12CR31C
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG13CR48C
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNG15CR64C
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
X-ray concentrator
NICER
X-ray optics
X-rays
soft X-rays
X-ray focusing

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