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The HERMES-TP/SP mission, based on a nanosatellite constellation, has very stringent constraints of sensitivity and compactness, and requires an innovative wide energy range instrument. The instrument technology is based on the "siswich" concept, in which custom-designed, low-noise Silicon Drift Detectors are used to simultaneously detect soft X-rays and to readout the optical light produced by the interaction of higher energy photons in GAGG:Ce scintillators. To preserve the inherent excellent spectroscopic performances of SDDs, advanced readout electronics is necessary. In this paper, the HERMES detector architecture concept will be described in detail, as well as the specifically developed front-end ASICs (LYRA-FE and LYRA-BE) and integration solutions. The experimental performance of the integrated system composed by scintillator+SDD+LYRA ASIC will be discussed, demonstrating that the requirements of a wide energy range sensitivity, from 2 keV up to 2 MeV, are met in a compact instrument., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Proceedings of SPIE "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation" 2020

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; Virtual, Online; United States; 14 December 2020 through 18 December 2020; Code 166330.--Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering Volume 11444, 2020, Article number 114442K.--Full list of authors: Labanti, C.; Amati, L.; Frontera, F.; Mereghetti, S.; Gasent-Blesa, J. L.; Tenzer, C.; Orleanski, P.; Kuvvetli, I.; Campana, R.; Fuschino, F.; Terenzi, L.; Virgilli, E.; Morgante, G.; Orlandini, M.; Butler, R. C.; Stephen, J. B.; Auricchio, N.; De Rosa, A.; Da Ronco, V.; Evangelisti, F. Melchiorri, M.; Squerzanti, S.; Fiorini, M.; Bertuccio, G.; Mele, F.; Gandola, M.; Malcovati, P.; Grassi, M.; Bellutti, P.; Borghi, G.; Ficorella, F.; Picciotto, A.; Zanini, V.; Zorzi, N.; Demenev, E.; Rashevskaya, I.; Rachevski, A.; Zampa, G.; Vacchi, A.; Zampa, N.; Baldazzi, G.; La Rosa, G.; Sottile, G.; Volpe, A.; Winkler, M.; Reglero, V.; Connell, P. H.; Pinazo-Herrero, B.; Navarro-González, J.; Rodríguez-Martínez, P.; Castro-Tirado, A. J.; Santangelo, A.; Hedderman, P.; Lorenzi, P.; Sarra, P.; Pedersen, S. M.; Tcherniak, D.; Guidorzi, C.; Rosati, P.; Trois, A.; Piazzolla, R., THESEUS (Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor) is one of the three missions selected by ESA as fifth medium class mission (M5) candidates in its Cosmic Vision science program, currently under assessment in a phase A study with a planned launch date in 2032. THESEUS is designed to carry on-board two wide and deep sky monitoring instruments for X/gamma-ray transients detection: a wide-field soft X-ray monitor with imaging capability (Soft X-ray Imager, SXI, 0.3 - 5 keV), a hard X-ray, partially-imaging spectroscopic instrument (X and Gamma Imaging Spectrometer, XGIS, 2 keV - 10 MeV), and an optical/near-IR telescope with both imaging and spectroscopic capability (InfraRed Telescope, IRT, 0.7 - 1.8 µm). The spacecraft will be capable of performing fast repointing of the IRT to the error region provided by the monitors, thus allowing it to detect and localize the transient sources down to a few arcsec accuracy, for immediate identification and redshift determination. The prime goal of the XGIS will be to detect transient sources, with monitoring timescales down to milliseconds, both independently of, or following up, SXI detections, and identify the sources performing localisation at, The Phase A study of the THESEUS/XGIS instrument is supported by ASI-INAF Agreement n. 2018-29-HH.0, OHB Italia/ - INAF-OASBo Agreement n.2331/2020/01, by the European Space Agency ESA through the M5/NPMC Programme and by the AHEAD2020 project funded by UE through H2020-INFRAIA-2018-2020. By the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, PID2019-109269RB-C41. By Polish National Science Center, Project 2019/35/B/ST9/03944 and Foundation for Polish Science, Project POIR.04.04.00-00-5C65/17-00.

A future compact and modular X and gamma-ray spectrometer (XGS) has been designed and a series of prototypes have been developed and tested. The experiment envisages the use of CsI scintillator bars read out at both ends by single-cell 25 mm2 Silicon Drift Detectors. Digital algorithms are used to discriminate between events absorbed in the Silicon layer (lower energy X rays) and events absorbed in the scintillator crystal (higher energy X rays and gamma-rays). The prototype characterization is shown and the modular design for future experiments with possible astrophysical applications (e.g. for the THESEUS mission proposed for the ESA M5 call) are discussed., 10 pages, 11 figures. Published in Proceeding of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016

The use of large-area, “ne-pitch Silicon detectors has demonstrated the feasibility of wide “eld imaging experi-ments requesting very low resources in terms of weight, volume, power and costs. The ”ying SuperAGILE instru-ment is the “rst such experiment, adopting large-area Silicon microstrip detectors coupled to one-dimensionalcoded masks. With less than 10 kg, 12 watt and 0.04 m 3 it provides 6-arcmin angular resolution over > 1 sr “eldof view. Due to odd operational conditions, SuperAGILE works in the unfavourable energy range 18 60 keV. Inthis paper we show that the use of innovative large-area Silicon Drift Detectors allows to design experiments witharcmin-imaging performance over steradian-wide “elds of view, in the energy range 2 50 keV, with spectroscopicresolution in the range of 300 570 eV (FWHM) at room temperature. We will show the concept, design andreadiness of such an experiment, supported by laboratory tests on large-area prototypes. We will quantify theexpected performance in potential applications on X-ray astronomy missions for the observation and long-termmonitoring of Galactic and extragalactic transient and persistent sources, as well as localization and “ne studyof the prompt emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts in soft X-rays.Keywords: Instrumentation:detectors „ X-rays:general

LOFT (Large Observatory for X-ray Timing) is an X-ray timing observatory that, with four other candidates, was considered by ESA as an M3 mission (with launch in 2022-2024) and has been studied during an extensive assessment phase. Its pointed instrument is the Large Area Detector (LAD), a 10 m 2 -class instrument operating in the 2-30 keV range, which is designed to perform X-ray timing of compact objects with unprecedented resolution down to millisecond time scales. Although LOFT was not downselected for launch, during the assessment most of the trade-offs have been closed, leading to a robust and well documented design that will be reproposed in future ESA calls. The building block of the LAD instrument is the Module, and in this paper we summarize the rationale for the module concept, the characteristics of the module and the trade-offs/optimisations which have led to the current design., Comment: Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 914462

LOFT (Large Observatory For x-ray Timing) is one of the ESA M3 missions selected within the Cosmic Vision program in 2011 to carry out an assessment phase study and compete for a launch opportunity in 2022-2024. The phase-A studies of all M3 missions were completed at the end of 2013. LOFT is designed to carry on-board two instruments with sensitivity in the 2-50 keV range: a 10 m2 class Large Area Detector (LAD) with a

LOFT (Large Observatory For x-ray Timing) is one of the four missions selected in 2011 for assessment study for the ESA M3 mission in the Cosmic Vision program, expected to be launched in 2024. The LOFT mission will carry two instruments with their prime sensitivity in the 2-30 keV range: a 10 m^2 class large area detector (LAD) with a, Proceedings of SPIE, Vol. 8443, Paper No. 8443-88

In the context of the design of wide-field of view experiments for X-ray astronomy, we studied the response to X-rays in the range between 2 and 60 keV of a large area Silicon Drift Chamber originally designed for particle tracking in high energy physics. We demonstrated excellent imaging and spectroscopy performance of monolithic 53 cm 2 detectors, with position resolution as good as 30 μm and energy resolution in the range 300-570 eV FWHM obtainable at room temperature (20 °C). In this paper we show the results of test campaigns at the X-ray facility at INAF/IASF Rome, aimed at characterizing the detector performance by scanning the detector area with highly collimated spots of monochromatic X-rays. In these tests we used a detector prototype equipped with discrete read-out front-end electronics.

NINA is the first of three telescopes of the Russian Italian Mission (RIM), devoted through the detection of cosmic rays to the study of galactic and extragalactic astrophysical phenomena. The detector of RIM-1 mission consists of 16 double sided silicon strips. The use of silicon technology is space applications has severel advantages thanks to its low consumption, high signal to noise ratio, low dead area, and no use of gas refueling systems. Indeed these detectors and the electronics used comes from balloon cosmic ray research carried out by the Wizard collaboration in the past years. NINA will be placed in a 700 km polar orbit on the Russian Resource-01 n. 4 satellite by the end of 1996. Solar and galactic cosmic ray nuclei from Hydrogen to Iron in the 10-100 MeV/n region will be studied. In addition to the physical goals, which include the study of anomalous component nuclei inside and outside the radiation belts, technological aspects of this low cost (1.5M dollars) mission will be equally important to the development of the following two steps of RIM mission: PAMELA and GILDA missions--devoted to antimatter and gamma ray research respectively--will make extensive use of the research and development performed with NINA.

GrailQuest (Gamma-ray Astronomy International Laboratory for Quantum Exploration of Space-Time) is an ambitious astrophysical mission concept that uses a fleet of small satellites whose main objective is to search for a dispersion law for light propagation in vacuo. Within Quantum Gravity theories, different models for space-time quantization predict relative discrepancies of the speed of photons w.r.t. the speed of light that depend on the ratio of the photon energy to the Planck energy. This ratio is as small as 10-23 for photons in the γ- ray band (100 keV). Therefore, to detect this effect, light must propagate over enormous distances and the experiment must have extraordinary sensitivity. Gamma-Ray Bursts, occurring at cosmological distances, could be used to detect this tiny signature of space-time granularity. This can be obtained by coherently combine a huge number of small instruments distributed in space to act as a single detector of unprecedented effective area. This is the first example of high-energy distributed astronomy: a new concept of modular observatory of huge overall collecting area consisting in a fleet of small satellites in low orbits, with sub-microsecond time resolution and wide energy band (keV-MeV). The enormous number of collected photons will allow to effectively search these energy dependent delays. Moreover, GrailQuest will allow to perform temporal triangulation of impulsive events with arc-second positional accuracies: an extraordinary sensitive X-ray/Gamma all-sky monitor crucial for hunting the elusive electromagnetic counterparts of Gravitational Waves, that will play a paramount role in the future of Multi-messenger Astronomy. A pathfinder of GrailQuest is already under development through the HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) project: a fleet of six 3U cube-sats to be launched by the end of 2022.

GAGG:Ce (Cerium-doped Gadolinium Aluminium Gallium Garnet) is a promising new scintillator crystal. A wide array of interesting features, such as high light output, fast decay times, almost non-existent intrinsic background and robustness, make GAGG:Ce an interesting candidate as a component of new space-based gamma-ray detectors. As a consequence of its novelty, literature on GAGG:Ce is still lacking on points crucial to its applicability in space missions. In particular, GAGG:Ce is characterized by unusually high and long-lasting delayed luminescence. This afterglow emission can be stimulated by the interactions between the scintillator and the particles of the near-Earth radiation environment. By contributing to the noise, it will impact the detector performance to some degree. In this manuscript we summarize the results of an irradiation campaign of GAGG:Ce crystals with protons, conducted in the framework of the HERMES-TP/SP (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites - Technological and Scientific Pathfinder) mission. A GAGG:Ce sample was irradiated with 70 MeV protons, at doses equivalent to those expected in equatorial and sun-synchronous Low-Earth orbits over orbital periods spanning 6 months to 10 years, time lapses representative of satellite lifetimes. We introduce a new model of GAGG:Ce afterglow emission able to fully capture our observations. Results are applied to the HERMES-TP/SP scenario, aiming at an upper-bound estimate of the detector performance degradation due to the afterglow emission expected from the interaction between the scintillator and the near-Earth radiation environment., 8 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of SPIE "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation" 2020