Conference paper
The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER): design and development
During 2014 and 2015, NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission proceeded successfully through Phase C, Design and Development. An X-ray (0.2-12 keV) astrophysics payload destined for the International Space Station, NICER is manifested for launch in early 2017 on the Commercial Resupply Services SpaceX-11 flight.
Its scientific objectives are to investigate the internal structure, dynamics, and energetics of neutron stars, the densest objects in the universe. During Phase C, flight components including optics, detectors, the optical bench, pointing actuators, electronics, and others were subjected to environmental testing and integrated to form the flight payload.
A custom-built facility was used to co-align and integrate the X-ray "concentrator" optics and silicon-drift detectors. Ground calibration provided robust performance measures of the optical (at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center) and detector (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) subsystems, while comprehensive functional tests prior to payload-level environmental testing met all instrument performance requirements.
We describe here the implementation of NICER's major subsystems, summarize their performance and calibration, and outline the component-level testing that was successfully applied.
| Language: | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering |
| Year: | 2016 |
| Pages: | 99051H-99051H-16 |
| Proceedings: | Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016 |
| Series: | Proceedings of Spie - the International Society for Optical Engineering |
| ISBN: | 1510601899 , 1510601902 , 9781510601895 and 9781510601901 |
| ISSN: | 1996756x and 0277786x |
| Types: | Conference paper |
| DOI: | 10.1117/12.2231304 |
| ORCIDs: | Jørgensen, John Leif |
Component level testing Design and Development Electrical and Electronic Engineering Environmental technology Environmental testing Gamma rays Goddard Space Flight Center Instrument testing International Space Station International Space stations NASA Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer Neutron stars Neutrons Phase C Pulsars Sextants Silicon detectors Space flight Space stations Space telescopes Stars Timing spectroscopy X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes X-ray astrophysics X-ray pulsar-based navigation (XNAV) X-ray pulsars astronomical telescopes astrophysics payload
