The ACIS Instrument

Gordon P. GarmireEvan Pugh Professor

ACIS IPIThe Pennsylvania State University

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Original Co-Investigators– Hale Bradt

– David Burrows

– Claude Canizares

– George Clark

– Stewart Collins

– Eric Feigelson

– Jeffery McClintock

– James Morrison

– John Nousek

– Saul Rappaport

-- George Ricker

– Guenter Reigler

– Richard Sherman

– Wallace Sargent

– Daniel Weedman

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The ACIS Team during the construction phase

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Timeline of ACIS• 1978 first X-rays on a WFPC Chip

• 1984 Proposal for ACIS submitted

• 1985 NASA Selects ACIS

• 1985 Select MIT over JPL for management

• 1988 Drop TI as CCD source, go to LL

• 1988 ASTRO-D (ASCA) test bed for LL CCDs

• 1988 Review before Phase C/D contract

• 1989 Slow start,

• 1990 Settled on LL CCD design

• 1992 Descope to high orbit and 4 mirrors, 2 FP instruments.

• 1994 Final CCD design and flight unit production starts

• 1995 Crisis on schedule, William Mayer takes over as Project Manager, MIT goes into crisis mode.

• 1995 Decide to use 2 chip for initial calibration

• 1996 Only two BI chips good, use on S3, S1

• 1996 Cracks in filters, change to polyimide and recalibrate

• 1996 Flexprint failures, need to fix CCDs on flight paddles

• 1997 Contamination on CCDs in cal at MIT

• PSU microprobe shows low Na and K

• 1997 Calibration of 2C and flight unit

• 1997 Vac test of full instrument on SIM

• 1998 Full test of S/C TV at TRW, ACIS door fails to open

• 1998 Design safety for door opening

• 1999 All door tests look good, no test in STS before deploy

• 1999 Launched

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AXAF Launch sequence

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The original ACIS instrument

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The final configuration

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The Full ACIS Instrumennt

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The ACIS Vacuum Door

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ACIS Venting Assembly

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The oxygen-rich SNR G292.0+1.8Peter Romig, David Burrows, Sangwook Park, Jack Hughes and Pat

Slane

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The mysterious central object in RCW103

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The Crab nebula and PulsarKoji Mori and David Burrows

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The 1 Ms Orion Region

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are needed to see this picture.

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The 2 Ms CDF-N