Search

Terminal Descent Radars (TDR), or landing radars, have been an integral element of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) sensor suites of robotic exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. As plans for new, exciting exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies are being developed, there is a need for a new generation of TDRs that are smaller, consume less power and are less expensive than previous sensors. The challenge of designing such a landing sensor is twofold: the first is to have well-vetted software tools that allow us to explore the design space for a particular mission scenario and analyze performance of relevant radar architectures. The second challenge is to reduce mass and power requirements of a landing radar without compromising reliability and performance. New design approaches that address these challenges need to be tested and demonstrated in realistic Entry-Descent-Landing (EDL)/Deorbit-Descent-Landing (DDL) scenarios. In this paper, we describe a TDR testbed developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The testbed is a closed-loop design, analysis and verification capability used to design and evaluate the next generation of landing radars for a variety of EDL/DDL scenarios.

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) Observing System (OS) is the data collector for the ZTF project to study astrophysical phenomena in the time domain. ZTF OS is based upon the 48-inch aperture Schmidt-type design Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California. It incorporates new telescope aspheric corrector optics, dome and telescope drives, a large-format exposure shutter, a flat-field illumination system, a robotic bandpass filter exchanger, and the key element: a new 47-square-degree, 600 megapixel cryogenic CCD mosaic science camera, along with supporting equipment. The OS collects and delivers digitized survey data to the ZTF Data System (DS). Here, we describe the ZTF OS design, optical implementation, delivered image quality, detector performance, and robotic survey efficiency., 31 pages, 26 figures, 5 tables; published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a public-private enterprise, is a new time domain survey employing a dedicated camera on the Palomar 48-inch Schmidt telescope with a 47 deg$^2$ field of view and 8 second readout time. It is well positioned in the development of time domain astronomy, offering operations at 10% of the scale and style of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) with a single 1-m class survey telescope. The public surveys will cover the observable northern sky every three nights in g and r filters and the visible Galactic plane every night in g and r. Alerts generated by these surveys are sent in real time to brokers. A consortium of universities which provided funding ("partnership") are undertaking several boutique surveys. The combination of these surveys producing one million alerts per night allows for exploration of transient and variable astrophysical phenomena brighter than r $\sim$ 20.5 on timescales of minutes to years. We describe the primary science objectives driving ZTF including the physics of supernovae and relativistic explosions, multi-messenger astrophysics, supernova cosmology, active galactic nuclei and tidal disruption events, stellar variability, and Solar System objects., Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, Published in PASP Focus Issue on the Zwicky Transient Facility

The traditional method for measuring CCD non-linearity using constant flux and variable exposure time is compared to a faster and potentially more accurate method that requires just two exposures at low intensity. Signal is varied by parallel-binning a successively greater number of lines. The binned image is compared to a conventional image with identical illumination, co-added digitally in the same pattern. This method requires no shutter calibration and is insensitive to illumination drift or charge transfer inefficiency. With some additional software effort, it can be arranged to tolerate illumination non-uniformity. We present data obtained by both methods for the 64 CD231-C6 outputs and discuss automated performance optimization. We find that the widely held assumption that non-linearity only affects high signals is incorrect when optimizing for minimum gain change over the full signal range, in which case slope increases with signal initially, then peaks in the mid-range before dropping again.

Zwicky Transient Facility is an integrated, multi-band astronomical survey system optimized for sensitivity, observing cadence, and efficiency. The key subsystem consists of a 600 megapixel CCD focal plane mounted in a flat-fielding vacuum cryostat, located at the prime focus of the 1.2-meter Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory. Supporting subsystems include a new 2.4-meter optical shutter assembly, a 1.35-meter diameter aspheric corrector plate, a cryostat stabilizing hexapod, a commercial robotic arm-based exchanger, three 440 millimeter width filters, four guide/focus CCDs, and dedicated optics compensating individual field curvature over each of sixteen 6k x 6k science CCDs.To optimize ZTF efficiency, all telescope and dome drives were upgraded for higher speed and acceleration, fast readout electronics were implemented, and a sophisticated robotic control system has been implemented. We present for the first time on-sky results from the recently completed ZTF including its realized optical image quality, CCD noise, and observing efficiency performance and discuss engineering challenges that have been overcome. Early scientific results from the ZTF survey are also included.

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 131(995), 018002 - (2019). doi:10.1088/1538-3873/aaecbe, The Zwicky Transient Facility(ZTF)is a new optical time-domain survey that uses the Palomar 48 inch Schmidttelescope. A custom-built wide-field camera provides a 47 deg2field of view and 8 s readout time, yielding morethan an order of magnitude improvement in survey speed relative to its predecessor survey, the Palomar TransientFactory. We describe the design and implementation of the camera and observing system. The ZTF data system atthe Infrared Processing and Analysis Center provides near-real-time reduction to identify moving and varyingobjects. We outline the analysis pipelines, data products, and associated archive. Finally, we present on-skyperformance analysis andfirst scientific results from commissioning and the early survey. ZTF’s public alert streamwill serve as a useful precursor for that of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope., Published by Univ. of Chicago Press, Journals Division10692, Chicago, Ill.

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~ 1.6-2.7Å. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project recently started undertaking the commissioning process of a subsystem at the Subaru Telescope side, with the integration and test processes of the other subsystems ongoing in parallel. We are aiming to start engineering night-sky operations in 2019, and observations for scientific use in 2021. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.

Pixelated Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe) detectors are currently flying on the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray (NuSTAR) NASA Astrophysics Small Explorer. While the pixel pitch of the detectors is ≈ 605 μm, we can leverage the detector readout architecture to determine the interaction location of an individual photon to much higher spatial accuracy. The sub-pixel spatial location allows us to finely oversample the point spread function of the optics and reduces imaging artifacts due to pixelation. In this paper we demonstrate how the sub-pixel information is obtained, how the detectors were calibrated, and provide ground verification of the quantum efficiency of our Monte Carlo model of the detector response.

We present a catalog of hard X-ray sources in a square-degree region surveyed by NuSTAR in the direction of the Norma spiral arm. This survey has a total exposure time of 1.7 Ms, and typical and maximum exposure depths of 50 ks and 1 Ms, respectively. In the area of deepest coverage, sensitivity limits of $5\times10^{-14}$ and $4\times10^{-14}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ in the 3-10 and 10-20 keV bands, respectively, are reached. Twenty-eight sources are firmly detected and ten are detected with low significance; eight of the 38 sources are expected to be active galactic nuclei. The three brightest sources were previously identified as a low-mass X-ray binary, high-mass X-ray binary, and pulsar wind nebula. Based on their X-ray properties and multi-wavelength counterparts, we identify the likely nature of the other sources as two colliding wind binaries, three pulsar wind nebulae, a black hole binary, and a plurality of cataclysmic variables (CVs). The CV candidates in the Norma region have plasma temperatures of $\approx$10-20 keV, consistent with the Galactic Ridge X-ray emission spectrum but lower than temperatures of CVs near the Galactic Center. This temperature difference may indicate that the Norma region has a lower fraction of intermediate polars relative to other types of CVs compared to the Galactic Center. The NuSTAR log$N$-log$S$ distribution in the 10-20 keV band is consistent with the distribution measured by Chandra at 2-10 keV if the average source spectrum is assumed to be a thermal model with $kT\approx15$~keV, as observed for the CV candidates., Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, 11 tables

The distribution of elements produced in the inner-most layers of a supernova explosion is a key diagnostic for studying the collapse of massive stars. Here we present the results of a 2.4 Ms \textit{NuSTAR} observing campaign aimed at studying the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A). We perform spatially-resolved spectroscopic analyses of the $^{44}$Ti ejecta which we use to determine the Doppler shift and thus the three-dimensional (3D) velocities of the $^{44}$Ti ejecta. We find an initial $^{44}$Ti mass of 1.54 $\pm$ 0.21 $\times 10^{-4}$ M$_{\odot}$ which has a present day average momentum direction of 340$^{\circ}$ $\pm$ 15$^{\circ}$ projected on to the plane of the sky (measured clockwise from Celestial North) and tilted by 58$^{\circ}$ $\pm$ 20$^{\circ}$ into the plane of the sky away from the observer, roughly opposite to the inferred direction of motion of the central compact object. We find some $^{44}$Ti ejecta that are clearly interior to the reverse shock and some that are clearly exterior to the reverse shock. Where we observe $^{44}$Ti ejecta exterior to the reverse shock we also see shock-heated iron; however, there are regions where we see iron but do not observe $^{44}$Ti. This suggests that the local conditions of the supernova shock during explosive nucleosynthesis varied enough to suppress the production of $^{44}$Ti in some regions by at least a factor of two, even in regions that are assumed to be the result of processes like $\alpha$-rich freezeout that should produce both iron and titanium., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures (6 3D animations in the online journal). Accepted for publication in ApJ

Asymmetry is required by most numerical simulations of stellar core-collapse explosions, but the form it takes differs significantly among models. The spatial distribution of radioactive 44Ti, synthesized in an exploding star near the boundary between material falling back onto the collapsing core and that ejected into the surrounding medium, directly probes the explosion asymmetries. CassiopeiaA is a young, nearby, core-collapse remnant from which 44Ti emission has previously been detected but not imaged. Asymmetries in the explosion have been indirectly inferred from a high ratio of observed 44Ti emission to estimated 56Ni emission, from optical light echoes, and from jet-like features seen in the X-ray and optical ejecta. Here we report spatial maps and spectral properties of the 44Ti in Cassiopeia A. This may explain the unexpected lack of correlation between the 44Ti and iron X-ray emission, the latter being visible only in shock-heated material. The observed spatial distribution rules out symmetric explosions even with a high level of convective mixing, as well as highly asymmetric bipolar explosions resulting from a fast-rotating progenitor. Instead, these observations provide strong evidence for the development of low-mode convective instabilities in core-collapse supernovae., Comment: 32 pages, Figures Embedded

We present the 3-8 keV and 8-24 keV number counts of active galactic nuclei (AGN) identified in the NuSTAR extragalactic surveys. NuSTAR has now resolved 33-39% of the X-ray background in the 8-24 keV band, directly identifying AGN with obscuring columns up to approximately 1e25 /cm2. In the softer 3-8 keV band the number counts are in general agreement with those measured by XMM-Newton and Chandra over the flux range 5e-15 < S(3 - 8 keV)/(erg/cm2/s) < 1e-12 probed by NuSTAR. In the hard 8-24 keV band NuSTAR probes fluxes over the range 2e-14 < S(8-24 keV)/(erg/cm2/s) < 1e-12, a factor of approximately 100 fainter than previous measurements. The 8-24 keV number counts match predictions from AGN population synthesis models, directly confirming the existence of a population of obscured and/or hard X-ray sources inferred from the shape of the integrated cosmic X-ray background. The measured NuSTAR counts lie significantly above simple extrapolation with a Euclidian slope to low flux of the Swift/BAT 15-55 keV number counts measured at higher fluxes S(15-55 keV) > 1e-11 erg/cm2/s, reflecting the evolution of the AGN population between the Swift/BAT local (z, 8 pages; accepted by the Astrophysical Journal

We have assembled a tiled array (220 cm2) of fine pixel (0.6 mm) imaging CZT detectors for a balloon borne wide-field hard X-ray telescope, ProtoEXIST2. ProtoEXIST2 is a prototype experiment for a next generation hard X-ray imager MIRAX-HXI on board Lattes, a spacecraft from the Agencia Espacial Brasilieira. MIRAX will survey the 5 to 200 keV sky of Galactic bulge, adjoining southern Galactic plane and the extragalactic sky with 6' angular resolution. This survey will open a vast discovery space in timing studies of accretion neutron stars and black holes. The ProtoEXIST2 CZT detector plane consists of 64 of 5 mm thick 2 cm x 2 cm CZT crystals tiled with a minimal gap. MIRAX will consist of 4 such detector planes, each of which will be imaged with its own coded-aperture mask. We present the packaging architecture and assembly procedure of the ProtoEXIST2 detector. On 2012, Oct 10, we conducted a successful high altitude balloon experiment of the ProtoEXIST1 and 2 telescopes, which demonstrates their technology readiness for space application. During the flight both telescopes performed as well as on the ground. We report the results of ground calibration and the initial results for the detector performance in the balloon flight., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS)

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6-2.7A. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward., 17 pages, 10 figures. Proceeding of SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is a new optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph design for the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope. PFS will cover 1.3 degree diameter field with 2394 fibers to complement the imaging capability of Hyper SuprimeCam (HSC). The prime focus unit of PFS called Prime Focus Instrument (PFI) provides the interface with the top structure of Subaru telescope and also accommodates the optical bench in which Cobra fiber positioners are located. In addition, the acquisition and guiding cameras (AGCs), the optical fiber positioner system, the cable wrapper, the fiducial fibers, illuminator, and viewer, the field element, and the telemetry system are located inside the PFI. The mechanical structure of the PFI was designed with special care such that its deflections sufficiently match those of the HSC's Wide Field Corrector (WFC) so the fibers will stay on targets over the course of the observations within the required accuracy. In this report, the latest status of PFI development will be given including the performance of PFI components, the setup and performance of the integration and testing equipment., 9 pages, 8 figures, SPIE proceeding

We report the first hard X-ray observations with NuSTAR of the BL Lac type blazar PKS 2155-304, augmented with soft X-ray data from XMM-Newton and gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope, obtained in April 2013 when the source was in a very low flux state. A joint NuSTAR and XMM spectrum, covering the energy range 0.5 - 60 keV, is best described by a model consisting of a log-parabola component with curvature beta = 0.3(+0.2,-0.1) and a (local) photon index 3.04 +/- 0.15 at photon energy of 2 keV, and a hard power-law tail with photon index 2.2 +/- 0.4. The hard X-ray tail can be smoothly joined to the quasi-simultaneous gamma-ray spectrum by a synchrotron self-Compton component produced by an electron distribution with index p = 2.2. Assuming that the power-law electron distribution extends down to the minimum electron Lorentz factor gamma_min = 1 and that there is one proton per electron, an unrealistically high total jet power L_p of roughly 10^47 erg/s is inferred. This can be reduced by two orders of magnitude either by considering a significant presence of electron-positron pairs with lepton-to-proton ratio of at least 30, or by introducing an additional, low-energy break in the electron energy distribution at the electron Lorentz factor gamma_br1 of roughly 100. In either case, the jet composition is expected to be strongly matter-dominated., Astrophysical Journal, in press

A commercial position sensing detector (PSD) has been used to measure mast deflections on a space based X-ray telescope (NuSTAR). This paper describes the space qualification process for utilizing a commercial PSD sensor in space. This discussion includes packaging, environmental testing, selection of flight candidate devices, calibration and alignment.

All planetary materials sampled thus far vary in their relative abundance of the major isotope of oxygen, ^(16)O, such that it has not been possible to define a primordial solar system composition. We measured the oxygen isotopic composition of solar wind captured and returned to Earth by NASA’s Genesis mission. Our results demonstrate that the Sun is highly enriched in ^(16)O relative to the Earth, Moon, Mars, and bulk meteorites. Because the solar photosphere preserves the average isotopic composition of the solar system for elements heavier than lithium, we conclude that essentially all rocky materials in the inner solar system were enriched in ^(17)O and ^(18)O, relative to ^(16)O, by ~7%, probably via non–mass-dependent chemistry before accretion of the first planetesimals.

We observed two relic radio sources, 0917+75 and 1401-33, with the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. We did not detect any X-ray emission, thermal or non-thermal, in excess of the local background level from either target. This imposes new upper limits on the X-ray flux due to inverse Compton scattering of photons from the cosmic microwave background by relativistic electrons in the relic sources, and new lower limits on the magnetic field strength from the relative strength of the radio and X-ray emission. The combination of radio and X-ray observations provides a measure of the magnetic field independent of equipartition or minimum energy assumptions. Due to increasing sensitivity of radio observations, the known population of cluster relics has been growing; however, studies of non-thermal X-ray emission from relics remain scarce. Our study adds to the small sample of relics studied in X-rays. In both relics, our field strength lower limits are slightly larger than estimates of the equipartition magnetic field.

We present the first sub-arcminute images of the Galactic Center above 10 keV, obtained with NuSTAR. NuSTAR resolves the hard X-ray source IGR J17456-2901 into non-thermal X-ray filaments, molecular clouds, point sources and a previously unknown central component of hard X-ray emission (CHXE). NuSTAR detects four non-thermal X-ray filaments, extending the detection of their power-law spectra with $\Gamma\sim1.3$-$2.3$ up to ~50 keV. A morphological and spectral study of the filaments suggests that their origin may be heterogeneous, where previous studies suggested a common origin in young pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). NuSTAR detects non-thermal X-ray continuum emission spatially correlated with the 6.4 keV Fe K$\alpha$ fluorescence line emission associated with two Sgr A molecular clouds: MC1 and the Bridge. Broad-band X-ray spectral analysis with a Monte-Carlo based X-ray reflection model self-consistently determined their intrinsic column density ($\sim10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$), primary X-ray spectra (power-laws with $\Gamma\sim2$) and set a lower limit of the X-ray luminosity of Sgr A* flare illuminating the Sgr A clouds to $L_X \stackrel{>}{\sim} 10^{38}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Above ~20 keV, hard X-ray emission in the central 10 pc region around Sgr A* consists of the candidate PWN G359.95-0.04 and the CHXE, possibly resulting from an unresolved population of massive CVs with white dwarf masses $M_{\rm WD} \sim 0.9 M_{\odot}$. Spectral energy distribution analysis suggests that G359.95-0.04 is likely the hard X-ray counterpart of the ultra-high gamma-ray source HESS J1745-290, strongly favoring a leptonic origin of the GC TeV emission., Comment: 27 pages. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

We report on observations of a TypeII quasar at redshift z=3.288, identified as a hard X-ray source in a 185 ks observation with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and as a high-redshift photometric candidate from deep, multiband optical imaging. CXOJ084837.9+445352 (hereinafter CXO52) shows an unusually hard X-ray spectrum from which we infer an absorbing column density N(H) = (4.8+/-2.1)e23 / cm2 (90% confidence) and an implied unabsorbed 2-10 keV rest-frame luminosity of L(2-10) = 3.3e44 ergs/s, well within the quasar regime. Hubble Space Telescope imaging shows CXO52 to be elongated with slight morphological differences between the WFPC2 F814W and NICMOS F160W bands. Optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of CXO52 show high-ionization emission lines with velocity widths ~1000 km/s and flux ratios similar to a Seyfert2 galaxy or radio galaxy. The latter are the only class of high-redshift TypeII luminous AGN which have been extensively studied to date. Unlike radio galaxies, however, CXO52 is radio quiet, remaining undetected at radio wavelengths to fairly deep limits, f(4.8GHz) < 40 microJy. High-redshift TypeII quasars, expected from unification models of active galaxies and long-thought necessary to explain the X-ray background, are poorly constrained observationally with few such systems known. We discuss recent observations of similar TypeII quasars and detail search techniques for such systems: namely (1) X-ray selection, (2) radio selection, (3) multi-color imaging selection, and (4) narrow-band imaging selection. Such studies are likely to begin identifying luminous, high-redshift TypeII systems in large numbers. We discuss the prospects for these studies and their implications to our understanding of the X-ray background., 28 pages, 5 figures; to appear in The Astrophysical Journal

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is an optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph with 2394 science fibers, which are distributed in 1.3 degree diameter field of view at Subaru 8.2-meter telescope. The simultaneous wide wavelength coverage from 0.38 um to 1.26 um, with the resolving power of 3000, strengthens its ability to target three main survey programs: cosmology, Galactic archaeology, and galaxy/AGN evolution. A medium resolution mode with resolving power of 5000 for 0.71 um to 0.89 um also will be available by simply exchanging dispersers. PFS takes the role for the spectroscopic part of the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts project, while Hyper Suprime-Cam works on the imaging part. To transform the telescope plus WFC focal ratio, a 3-mm thick broad-band coated glass-molded microlens is glued to each fiber tip. A higher transmission fiber is selected for the longest part of cable system, while one with a better FRD performance is selected for the fiber-positioner and fiber-slit components, given the more frequent fiber movements and tightly curved structure. Each Fiber positioner consists of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors. Its engineering model has been produced and tested. Fiber positioning will be performed iteratively by taking an image of artificially back-illuminated fibers with the Metrology camera located in the Cassegrain container. The camera is carefully designed so that fiber position measurements are unaffected by small amounts of high special-frequency inaccuracies in WFC lens surface shapes. Target light carried through the fiber system reaches one of four identical fast-Schmidt spectrograph modules, each with three arms. Prototype VPH gratings have been optically tested. CCD production is complete, with standard fully-depleted CCDs for red arms and more-challenging thinner fully-depleted CCDs with blue-optimized coating for blue arms., 14 pages, 12 figures, submitted to "Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V, Suzanne K. Ramsay, Ian S. McLean, Hideki Takami, Editors, Proc. SPIE 9147 (2014)"

The Cobra fiber positioner is being developed by the California Institute of Technology (CIT) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) instrument that will be installed at the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. PFS is a fiber fed multi-object spectrometer that uses an array of Cobra fiber positioners to rapidly reconfigure 2394 optical fibers at the prime focus of the Subaru Telescope that are capable of positioning a fiber to within 5um of a specified target location. A single Cobra fiber positioner measures 7.7mm in diameter and is 115mm tall. The Cobra fiber positioner uses two piezo-electric rotary motors to move a fiber optic anywhere in a 9.5mm diameter patrol area. In preparation for full-scale production of 2550 Cobra positioners an Engineering Model (EM) version was developed, built and tested to validate the design, reduce manufacturing costs, and improve system reliability. The EM leveraged the previously developed prototype versions of the Cobra fiber positioner. The requirements, design, assembly techniques, development testing, design qualification and performance evaluation of EM Cobra fiber positioners are described here. Also discussed is the use of the EM build and test campaign to validate the plans for full-scale production of 2550 Cobra fiber positioners scheduled to begin in late-2014.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite is a NASA Small Explorer mission designed to operate the first focusing high-energy X-ray (3-79 keV) telescope in orbit. Since the launch in June 2012, all the NuSTAR components have been working normally. The focal plane module is equipped with an 155Eu radioactive source to irradiate the CdZnTe pixel detectors for independent calibration separately from optics. The inflight spectral calibration of the CdZnTe detectors is performed with the onboard 155Eu source. The derived detector performance agrees well with ground-measured data. The in-orbit detector background rate is stable and the lowest among past high-energy X-ray instruments.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission was launched on 2012 June 13 and is the first focusing high-energy X-ray telescope in orbit operating above ~10 keV. NuSTAR flies two co-aligned Wolter-I conical approximation X-ray optics, coated with Pt/C and W/Si multilayers, and combined with a focal length of 10.14 meters this enables operation from 3-79 keV. The optics focus onto two focal plane arrays, each consisting of 4 CdZnTe pixel detectors, for a field of view of 12.5 arcminutes. The inherently low background associated with concentrating the X-ray light enables NuSTAR to probe the hard X-ray sky with a more than 100-fold improvement in sensitivity, and with an effective point spread function FWHM of 18 arcseconds (HPD ~1), NuSTAR provides a leap of improvement in resolution over the collimated or coded mask instruments that have operated in this bandpass. We present in-orbit performance details of the observatory and highlight important science results from the first two years of the mission.

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is a new optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph design for the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope. PFS will cover 1.3 degree diameter field with 2394 fibers to complement the imaging capability of Hyper SuprimeCam (HSC). The prime focus unit of PFS called Prime Focus Instrument (PFI) provides the interface with the top structure of Subaru telescope and also accommodates the optical bench in which Cobra fiber positioners are located. In addition, the acquisition and guiding (A&G) cameras, the optical fiber positioner system, the cable wrapper, the fiducial fibers, illuminator, and viewer, the field element, and the telemetry system are located inside the PFI. The mechanical structure of the PFI was designed with special care such that its deflections sufficiently match those of the HSC Wide Field Corrector (WFC) so the fibers will stay on targets over the course of the observations within the required accuracy., 9 pages, 7 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is a new optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph designed for the prime focus of the 8.2m Subaru telescope. The metrology camera system of PFS serves as the optical encoder of the COBRA fiber motors for the configuring of fibers. The 380mm diameter aperture metrology camera will locate at the Cassegrain focus of Subaru telescope to cover the whole focal plane with one 50M pixel Canon CMOS sensor. The metrology camera is designed to provide the fiber position information within 5{\mu}m error over the 45cm focal plane. The positions of all fibers can be obtained within 1s after the exposure is finished. This enables the overall fiber configuration to be less than 2 minutes., Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014

Future astronomical X-ray telescopes, including the balloon-borne High-Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) and the Constellation-X Hard X-ray Telescope (Con-X HXT) plan to incorporate depth-graded multilayer coatings in order to extend sensitivity into the hard X-ray ( 10≲E≲80 keV ) band. In this paper, we present measurements of the reflectance in the 18–170 keV energy range of a cylindrical prototype nested optic taken at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). The mirror segments, mounted in a single bounce stack, are coated with depth-graded W/Si multilayers optimized for broadband performance up to 69.5 keV (WK-edge). These designs are ideal for both the HEFT and Con-X HXT applications. We compare the measurements to model calculations to demonstrate that the reflectivity can be well described by the intended power law distribution of the bilayer thicknesses, and that the coatings are uniform at the 5% level over the mirror surface. Finally, we apply the measurements to predict effective areas achievable for HEFT and Con-X HXT using these W/Si designs.

Stellar metals shine toward our eyes only Taking a different look at a familiar star may still yield surprises. Boggs et al. trained the x-ray vision of the NuSTAR observatory on the well-studied supernova 1987A. Core-collapse explosions such as SN 1987A produce a titanium isotope, 44 Ti, whose radioactive decay yields hard x-ray emission lines. All the emission associated with 44Ti appears to be from material moving toward us, with none moving away. This implies that the explosion was not symmetric. These findings help to explain the mechanics of SN 1987A and of core-collapse supernovae in general. Science , this issue p. 670

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission, launched on 2012 June 13, is the first focusing high-energy X-ray telescope in orbit. NuSTAR operates in the band from 3 to 79 keV, extending the sensitivity of focusing far beyond the ~10 keV high-energy cutoff achieved by all previous X-ray satellites. The inherently low background associated with concentrating the X-ray light enables NuSTAR to probe the hard X-ray sky with a more than 100-fold improvement in sensitivity over the collimated or coded mask instruments that have operated in this bandpass. Using its unprecedented combination of sensitivity and spatial and spectral resolution, NuSTAR will pursue five primary scientific objectives: (1) probe obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity out to the peak epoch of galaxy assembly in the universe (at z[< over ~]2) by surveying selected regions of the sky; (2) study the population of hard X-ray-emitting compact objects in the Galaxy by mapping the central regions of the Milky Way; (3) study the non-thermal radiation in young supernova remnants, both the hard X-ray continuum and the emission from the radioactive element [superscript 44]Ti; (4) observe blazars contemporaneously with ground-based radio, optical, and TeV telescopes, as well as with Fermi and Swift, to constrain the structure of AGN jets; and (5) observe line and continuum emission from core-collapse supernovae in the Local Group, and from nearby Type Ia events, to constrain explosion models. During its baseline two-year mission, NuSTAR will also undertake a broad program of targeted observations. The observatory consists of two co-aligned grazing-incidence X-ray telescopes pointed at celestial targets by a three-axis stabilized spacecraft. Deployed into a 600 km, near-circular, 6° inclination orbit, the observatory has now completed commissioning, and is performing consistent with pre-launch expectations. NuSTAR is now executing its primary science mission, and with an expected orbit lifetime of 10 yr, we anticipate proposing a guest investigator program, to begin in late 2014., United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Contract NNG08FD06C)

The ProtoEXIST program was conceived for the development of a highly scalable detector plane architecture utilizing pixilated CdZnTe (CZT) detectors for eventual deployment in a large scale (1–4 m2 active area) coded aperture X-ray telescope. Development is now underway for ProtoEXIST2, which ultimately will be comprised of a closely tiled 8×8 array of 19.9 mm × 19.9 mm, 5 mm thick Redlen CZT crystals, analogous to ProtoEXIST1, but will now utilize the NuASIC which accommodates the direct bonding of CZT detectors with a 32×32 pixilated anode with a 604.8 µm pixel pitch and a guard ring surrounding the perimeter of the anode pattern. Currently 6 prototype detectors have been fabricated and tested. An energy threshold of approximately 6 keV and energy resolutions of 2.5 keV FWHM at 122.0 keV and 2.1 keV at 59.6 keV have been achieved with individual detectors. The performance and energy resolution of the individual prototype detectors is discussed in detail. In addition, during preliminary testing of the prototype ProtoEXIST2 detectors reduced photopeak efficiency and pixel distortions were observed for pixels within approximately 3 mm of the CZT edge. These distortions have been largely corrected with two independent techniques: the application of an 73 mm × 73 mm extended cathode centered directly above the detector and the use of a grounded, 6mm tall, electrostatic side shield surrounding the perimeter of the detector. The effects of the side shield and extended cathode are covered in detail.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) will be the first space mission to focus in the hard X-ray (5-80 keV) band. The NuSTAR instrument carries two co-aligned grazing incidence hard X-ray telescopes. Each NuSTAR focal plane consists of four 2 mm CdZnTe hybrid pixel detectors, each with an active collecting area of 2 cm x 2 cm. Each hybrid consists of a 32 x 32 array of 605 micron pixels, read out with the Caltech custom low-noise NuCIT ASIC. In order to characterize the spectral response of each pixel to the degree required to meet the science calibration requirements, we have developed a model based on Geant4 together with the Shockley-Ramo theorem customized to the NuSTAR hybrid design. This model combines a Monte Carlo of the X-ray interactions with subsequent charge transport within the detector. The combination of this model and calibration data taken using radioactive sources of Co-57, Eu-155 and Am-241 enables us to determine electron and hole mobility-lifetime products for each pixel, and to compare actual to ideal performance expected for defect-free material., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, to appear in Proceedings of the SPIE Conference 8145: UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XVII

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will carry the first focusing hard X-ray (5 - 80 keV) telescope to orbit. NuSTAR will offer a factor 50 - 100 sensitivity improvement compared to previous collimated or coded mask imagers that have operated in this energy band. In addition, NuSTAR provides sub-arcminute imaging with good spectral resolution over a 12-arcminute field of view. After launch, NuSTAR will carry out a two-year primary science mission that focuses on four key programs: studying the evolution of massive black holes through surveys carried out in fields with excellent multiwavelength coverage, understanding the population of compact objects and the nature of the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, constraining explosion dynamics and nucleosynthesis in supernovae, and probing the nature of particle acceleration in relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei. A number of additional observations will be included in the primary mission, and a. guest observer program will be proposed for an extended mission to expand the range of scientific targets. The payload consists of two co-aligned depth-graded multilayer coated grazing incidence optics focused onto solid state CdZnTe pixel detectors. To be launched in early 2012 on a Pegasus rocket into a low-inclination Earth orbit. NuSTAR largely avoids SAA passages, and will therefore have low and stable detector backgrounds. The telescope achieves a 10.15-meter focal length through on-orbit deployment of all mast. An aspect and alignment metrology system enable reconstruction of the absolute aspect and variations in the telescope alignment resulting from mast flexure during ground data processing. Data will be publicly available at GSFC's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) following validation at the science operations center located at Caltech.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will carry the first focusing hard X-ray (5 -- 80 keV) telescope to orbit. NuSTAR will offer a factor 50 -- 100 sensitivity improvement compared to previous collimated or coded mask imagers that have operated in this energy band. In addition, NuSTAR provides sub-arcminute imaging with good spectral resolution over a 12-arcminute field of view. After launch, NuSTAR will carry out a two-year primary science mission that focuses on four key programs: studying the evolution of massive black holes through surveys carried out in fields with excellent multiwavelength coverage, understanding the population of compact objects and the nature of the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, constraining explosion dynamics and nucleosynthesis in supernovae, and probing the nature of particle acceleration in relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei. A number of additional observations will be included in the primary mission, and a guest observer program will be proposed for an extended mission to expand the range of scientific targets. The payload consists of two co-aligned depth-graded multilayer coated grazing incidence optics focused onto solid state CdZnTe pixel detectors. To be launched in early 2012 on a Pegasus rocket into a low-inclination Earth orbit. Data will be publicly available at GSFC's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) following validation at the science operations center located at Caltech.

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), scheduled for launch in 2011, is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will improve the current sensitivity for detection of faint astrophysical sources in the 6-80 keV band by two orders of magnitude. NuSTAR achieves high sensitivity by utilizing a hard X-ray focusing system. We have developed Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe) pixel detectors optimized for good energy for the NuSTAR focal plane. Each of NuSTAR's two focal planes is comprised of hybrid detectors that consist of a CdZnTe pixel sensor with the anode contacts directly attached to corresponding readout circuits integrated on a custom low-noise VLSI chip. Each hybrid is 20.5 x 20.5 x 2.0 mm in size with the anode divided into 32 x 32 array of pixels at 0.6048 mm. In this paper we describe the hybrid sensor architecture, and present preliminary results from the characterization of detectors fabricated for the NuSTAR focal plane Engineering Test Unit (ETU). We achieve excellent electronic readout noise with an average of 250 eV FWHM, and energy resolution between 0.9 and 1.6 keV FWHM at 86.5 keV, depending on position in the sensor and improving at lower energies. In order to achieve the best spectral resolution we need to make pixeldependent corrections for events with charge split among multiple pixels, and in addition we make spectral corrections based on depth of the gamma-ray interaction.

We are developing imaging Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) pixel detectors optimized for astrophysical hard X-ray applications. Our hybrid detector consist of a CdTe crystal 1mm thick and 2cm × 2cm in area with segmented anode contacts directly bonded to a custom low-noise application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). The CdTe sensor, fabricated by ACRORAD (Okinawa, Japan), has Schottky blocking contacts on a 605 micron pitch in a 32 × 32 array, providing low leakage current and enabling readout of the anode side. The detector is bonded using epoxy-gold stud interconnects to a custom low noise, low power ASIC circuit developed by Caltech's Space Radiation Laboratory. We have achieved very good energy resolution over a wide energy range (0.62keV FWHM @ 60keV, 10.8keV FWHM @ 662keV). We observe polarization effects at room temperature, but they are suppressed if we operate the detector at or below 0°C degree. These detectors have potential application for future missions such as the International X-ray Observatory (IXO).

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, NuSTAR, is a NASA funded Small Explorer Mission, SMEX, scheduled for launch in mid 2011. The spacecraft will fly two co-aligned conical approximation Wolter-I optics with a focal length of 10 meters. The mirrors will be deposited with Pt/SiC and W/Si multilayers to provide a broad band reflectivity from 6 keV up to 78.4 keV. To optimize the mirror coating we use a Figure of Merit procedure developed for gazing incidence optics, which averages the effective area over the energy range, and combines an energy weighting function with an angular weighting function to control the shape of the desired effective area. The NuSTAR multilayers are depth graded with a power-law, d_i = a/(b + i)^c, and we optimize over the total number of bi-layers, N, c, and the maximum bi-layer thickness, d_(max). The result is a 10 mirror group design optimized for a flat even energy response both on and off-axis.

One of the primary objectives of the Genesis sample return mission is to measure the oxygen isotopic composition of the Sun to permil-level precision. The returned samples pose a unique analytical challenge, and around the world, there has been parallel development of several competing techniques to make the oxygen measurement on the Genesis concentrator samples. At UCLA, we have developed a hybrid instrument: a secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) front-end combined with an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS), whose purpose is to eliminate molecular interferences via dissociation. We describe here the current status of the development of the instrument and the remaining issues to address before we request the Genesis samples for analysis.

We present the catalog of 477 spectra from the Serendipitous Extragalactic X-ray Source Identification (SEXSI) program, a survey designed to probe the dominant contributors to the 2-10 keV cosmic X-ray background. Our survey covers 1 deg^2 of sky to 2-10 keV fluxes of 10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1, and 2 deg^2 for fluxes of 3 x 10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1. Our spectra reach to R 10^22 cm^-2, independent of unobscured luminosity. We classify 168 sources as emission-line galaxies; all are X-ray luminous objects with optical spectra lacking both high-ionization lines and evidence of a non-stellar continuum. The redshift distribution of these emission-line galaxies peaks at a significantly lower redshift than does that of the sources we spectroscopically identify as AGN. We conclude that few of these sources can be powered by starburst activity. Stacking spectra for a subset of these sources, we detect [Ne V] emission, a clear signature of AGN activity, confirming that the majority of these objects are Seyfert 2s in which the high-ionization lines are diluted by stellar emission. We find 33 objects lacking broad lines in their optical spectra which have quasar X-ray luminosities (Lx>10^44 erg s^-1), the largest sample of such objects identified to date. In addition, we explore 17 AGN associated with galaxy clusters and find that the cluster-member AGN sample has a lower fraction of broad-line AGN than does the background sample., Accepted to ApJ; 57 pages, 25 figures, 5 tables

The Serendipitous Extragalactic X-ray Source Identification (SEXSI) Program is designed to expand significantly the sample of identified extragalactic hard X-ray sources at intermediate fluxes, 1e-13 erg/cm2/s < S_(2-10 keV) < 1e-15 erg/cm2/s. SEXSI, which includes sources derived from more than 2 sq deg of Chandra images, provides the largest hard X-ray-selected sample yet studied, offering an essential complement to the Chandra Deep Fields (total area ~0.2 sq deg). In this paper we describe R-band optical imaging of the SEXSI fields from the Palomar, MDM, and Keck observatories. We have identified counterparts, or derived flux limits for nearly 1000 hard X-ray sources. Using the optical images, we derive accurate source positions. We investigate correlations between optical and X-ray flux, and optical flux and X-ray hardness ratio. We also study the density of optical sources surrounding X-ray counterparts, as well as the properties of optically-faint, hard X-ray sources., 30 pages, 8 figures; accepted to ApJS

We have developed large format CdZnTe pixel detectors optimized for astrophysical applications. The detectors, designed for the High Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) balloon experiment, each consists of an array of 24x44 pixels, on a 498 μm pitch. Each of the anode segments on a CdZnTe sensor is bonded to a custom, low-noise application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)optimized to achieve low threshold and good energy resolution. We have studied detectors fabricated by two different bonding methods and corresponding anode plane designs---the first detector has a steering electrode grid, and is bonded to the ASIC with indium bumps; the second detector has no grid but a narrower gap between anode contacts, and is bonded to the ASIC with conductive epoxy bumps and gold stud bumps in series. In this paper, we present results from detailed X-ray testing of the HEFT pixel detectors. This includes measurements of the energy resolution for both single-pixel and split-pixel events, and characterization of the effects of charge trapping, electrode biases and temperature on the spectral performance. Detectors from the two bonding methods are contrasted.

Over the last six years, we have been developing imaging Cadmium Zinc Telluride pixel detectors optimized for astrophysical focusing hard X-ray telescopes. This application requires sensors with modest area, relatively small pixels (≾ 500 µm) and sub-keV energy resolution. For experiments operating in satellite orbits, energy thresholds of ~1-2 keV are also desirable. In this paper we describe the desired detector performance characteristics, and report on the status of our development effort. In particular, we present results from a 1152-channel custom low-noise VLSI readout designed to achieve excellent spectral resolution and good imaging performance in the 5 - 100 keV band.

We have studied the design of astronomical multilayer telescopes optimized for performance from 5 to 200 keV. This region of the spectrum contains important nuclear lines that are observable in supernovae and their remnants. The study of these lines can help to differentiate currently competing theories of supernova explosion. Our telescope design will enable us to measure the spectral lines of isotopes such as Ni-56 in Type Ia supernovae and Ti-44 in core-collapse remnants, as well as to observe active galactic nuclei at gamma-ray energies. We considered the performances of multilayers of various material pairs, including W/Si, Pt/C and Ni93V7/Si, as employed in conical-approximation Wolter I optics. We experimented with dividing the energy band of interest into several sections, and optimizing different groups of mirror shells within a single telescope for each smaller energy band. Different material pairs are also used for different energy bands, in order to obtain a higher overall performance. We also consider the significance of the energy bandwidth on the effectiveness of Joensen's parametrization of the multilayer thickness profile, and on the mirror performance within the band.

The three most important quantities used to assess the performance of astronomical x-ray telescope optics are the on- axis collecting area, the field of view, and the half-power diameter. The first two quantities depend on the mirror packing arrangement and the multilayer coating design. In order to optimize the coating design, we have developed a figure-of-merit (FOM) that accounts for the coating response over a specified range of energies and off-axis angles. We present an example where we have used this FOM to optimize a specific coating design for the High Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) and to understand tradeoffs between performance and coating thickness.

The next major observational advance in hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophysics will come with the implementation of telescopes capable of focusing 10-200 keV radiation. Focusing allows high signal-to-noise imaging and spectroscopic observations of many sources in this band for the first time. The recent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings has made the design of telescopes for this bandpass practical, however the ability to manufacture inexpensive substrates with appropriate surface quality and figure to achieve sub-arcminute performance has remained an elusive goal. In this paper, we report on new, thermally-formed glass micro-sheet optics capable of meeting the requirements of the next-generation of astronomical hard X-ray telescopes.

We have measured the hard X-ray reflectivity and imaging performance from depth graded W/Si multilayer coated mirror segments mounted in a single reflection cylindrical prototype for the hard X-ray telescopes to be flown on the High Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) balloon mission. Data have been obtained in the energy range from 18 - 170 keV at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and at the Danish Space Research Institute at 8 keV. The modeling of the reflectivity data demonstrate that the multilayer structure can be well described by the intended power law distribution of the bilayer thicknesses optimized for the telescope performance and we find that all the data is consistent with an interfacial width of 4.5 angstroms. We have also demonstrated that the required 5% uniformity of the coatings is obtained over the mirror surface and we have shown that it is feasible to use similar W/Si coatings for much higher energies than the nominal energy range of HEFT leading the way for designing Gamma-ray telescopes for future astronomical applications. Finally we have demonstrate 35 arcsecond Half Power Diameter imaging performance of the one bounce prototype throughout the energy range of the HEFT telescopes.

Sensitive nuclear line spectroscopy for observations of prompt emission from supernovae, as well as mapping of remnants has been a primary goal of gamma-ray astrophysics since its inception. A number of key lines lie in the energy band from 10 - 600 keV. In this region of the spectrum, observations have to-date been limited by high background and poor angular resolution. In this paper, we present several designs capable of extending the sensitivity of grazing incidence optics into this energy range. In particular, we discuss a 15 m focal length design for NASA's High-Sensitivity Spectroscopic Imaging Mission concept, as well as a 50 m focal length design which can extend ESA's XEUS mission into this band. We demonstrate that an unprecedented line sensitivity of 10-7 cm-2s-1 can be achieved for the most important lines in this energy band.© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

The High Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) is a balloon-borne experiment employing focusing optics in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray band (20 - 100 keV) for sensitive observations of astrophysical sources. The primary scientific objectives include imaging and spectroscopy of 44Ti emission in young supernova remnants, sensitive hard X-ray observations of obscured Active Galactic Nuclei, and spectroscopic observations of accreting high-magnetic field pulsars. Over the last four years, we have developed grazing-incidence depth-graded multilayer optics and high spectral resolution solid stat Cadmium Zinc Telluride pixel detectors in order to assemble a balloon-borne experiment with sensitivity and imaging capability superior to previous satellite missions operating in this band. In this paper, we describe the instrument design, and present recent laboratory demonstrations of the optics and detector technologies.© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.