Calibration and test of the Athena on-board metrology system

Manuel Abreu; Alexandre Cabral; José Rebordão; Nuno M. Gonçalves; Sergio Mottini; João Costa Pinto; Miguel Santos; Davide Oddenino

doi:10.1117/12.3019718

21 August 2024 Calibration and test of the Athena on-board metrology system

Manuel Abreu, Alexandre Cabral, José Rebordão, Nuno M. Gonçalves, Sergio Mottini, João Costa Pinto, Miguel Santos, Davide Oddenino

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13093, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 130934F (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019718
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Conference Poster

Abstract

Athena is ESA’s X-ray observatory mission designed to address the Hot and Energetic Universe theme. The instrument consists of a single x-ray telescope, supported by a large area mirror based on Silicon Pore Optics technology, focusing the photon flux alternatively onto two different instruments: the Wide Field Imager (WFI) and the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU). The process of switching the focus between the two instruments is produced by a hexapod structure changing the pointing of the main X-ray mirror. To verify that the mirror optical axis is aligned with each of the instruments, an optical On-board Metrology System (OBM) will be used to estimate the telescope pointing with accuracy better than 0.5 arcsec. The OBM system currently in development at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences is based on the concept of a projective metrology where a pattern of active fiducials is imaged by an array detector. The position and orientation of the imaged pattern provides the necessary information to reconstruct the fiducial displacements with respect to the calibrated reference points, allowing obtaining an estimate of the pointing absolute knowledge error.

The design of the metrology system is presently at Engineering Model level, although it will be tested for performance in normal laboratory conditions.

In this work we will present the experimental setup and processing architecture designed for calibration and testing the OBM demonstrator close to operational conditions, namely in what respects to the distance from the OBM Optical Head to the fiducial plane (12 meter). This experimental setup is calibrated to reproduce verifiable fiducial displacements over the OBM telescope field of view at 7.5 micrometre level (1 sigma). This setup allows evaluating the performance of OBM and verify its compliance with requirements of the on-board metrology system for the Athena X-ray Observatory mission.

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Citation Download Citation

Manuel Abreu, Alexandre Cabral, José Rebordão, Nuno M. Gonçalves, Sergio Mottini, João Costa Pinto, Miguel Santos, and Davide Oddenino "Calibration and test of the Athena on-board metrology system", Proc. SPIE 13093, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 130934F (21 August 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019718

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

;

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE