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Published October 6, 2011 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

First results from the ground calibration of the NuSTAR flight optics

Abstract

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.

Additional Information

© 2011 SPIE. We gratefully acknowledge the technical support Zeshan Haier provided in setting up and maintaining the RaMCaF calibration facility for the FM1 and FM2 measurements. This work is supported by a NASA contract to Columbia University, NNG08FD60C, "The Nuclear Spectroscopy Telescope Array (NuSTAR): Bringing the High Energy Universe into Focus." Part of this work was funded by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU Space). Part of this work was also performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL contributions included support from LDRD project 10-SI-007. The use of the RMD X-ray detector for optics calibration was made possible thanks to NASA SBIR Grant NNX11CH32P. The prototype SDD development is funded by IRAP, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES).

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