Session
Weekend Session 3: Science/Mission Payloads - Research & Academia I
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
We report the development of Gas Multiplier Counters (GMCs) onboard the 6U CubeSat X-ray observatory NinjaSat, scheduled to be launched in October 2023. GMC is a 1U-size non-imaging gas X-ray detector sensitive to 2–50 keV X-rays, and two identical GMCs are mounted on NinjaSat. GMC consists of a gas cell filled with a xenon/argon/dimethyl ether (75%/24%/1%) gas mixture with a pressure of 1.2 atm at 0◦C, a high voltage supply and analog signal processing board, a digital signal processing board, an X-ray collimator of a 2.1◦ field of view, and an iron-55 calibration source. The most significant feature of the GMC is its large effective area of 32 cm2 at 6 keV, which is more than two orders of magnitude larger than the X-ray detectors onboard previously launched CubeSats. We have achieved this at a low cost and in a short development time by employing a gas detector that can easily increase its effective area and using a space-proven gas electron multiplier. GMC was characterized with X-rays from an X-ray generator in a laboratory and monochromatic X-rays on the BL-14A beamline at the KEK synchrotron radiation facility. In this paper, we present the design of GMC and the preliminary results of the detector calibration.
Development of Gas Multiplier Counters (GMCs) Onboard the 6U CubeSat X-Ray Observatory NinjaSat
Utah State University, Logan, UT
We report the development of Gas Multiplier Counters (GMCs) onboard the 6U CubeSat X-ray observatory NinjaSat, scheduled to be launched in October 2023. GMC is a 1U-size non-imaging gas X-ray detector sensitive to 2–50 keV X-rays, and two identical GMCs are mounted on NinjaSat. GMC consists of a gas cell filled with a xenon/argon/dimethyl ether (75%/24%/1%) gas mixture with a pressure of 1.2 atm at 0◦C, a high voltage supply and analog signal processing board, a digital signal processing board, an X-ray collimator of a 2.1◦ field of view, and an iron-55 calibration source. The most significant feature of the GMC is its large effective area of 32 cm2 at 6 keV, which is more than two orders of magnitude larger than the X-ray detectors onboard previously launched CubeSats. We have achieved this at a low cost and in a short development time by employing a gas detector that can easily increase its effective area and using a space-proven gas electron multiplier. GMC was characterized with X-rays from an X-ray generator in a laboratory and monochromatic X-rays on the BL-14A beamline at the KEK synchrotron radiation facility. In this paper, we present the design of GMC and the preliminary results of the detector calibration.
