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The Spectroscopic Investigation of Nebular Gas (SING) is a near-ultraviolet (NUV) low-resolution spectrograph payload designed to operate in the NUV range, 1400 Å – 2700 Å, from a stable space platform. SING telescope has a primary aperture of 298 mm, feeding the light to the long-slit UV spectrograph. SING has a field of view (FOV) of 1 ∘ , achieving a spatial resolution of 1.33 arcminute and spectral resolution of 3.7 Å( R ∼ 600 ) at the central wavelength. SING employs a micro-channel plate (MCP) with a CMOS readout-based photon-counting detector. The instrument is designed to observe diffuse sources such as nebulae, supernova remnants, and the interstellar medium (ISM) to understand their chemistry. SING was selected by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to be hosted on the Chinese Space Station. The instrument will undergo qualification tests as per the launch requirements. In this paper, we describe the hardware design, optomechanical assembly, and calibration of the instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ultraviolet (UV) astronomical observations, photons from the sources are very few compared to the visible or infrared (IR) wavelength ranges. Detectors operating in the UV usually employ a photon-counting mode of operation. These detectors usually have an image intensifier sensitive to UV photons and a readout mechanism that employs photon counting. The development of readouts for these detectors is resource-intensive and expensive. In this paper, we describe the development of a low-cost UV photon-counting detector processing unit that employs a Raspberry Pi (RPi) with its built-in readout to perform the photon-counting operation. Our system can operate in both 3 × 3 and 5 × 5 window modes at 30 frames per second (fps). The system can be built quickly from readily available custom-off-the-shelf (COTS) components and is thus used in inexpensive CubeSats or small satellite missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]