Fabrication, Assembly and Testing of the Reflection Grating Arrays aboard XMM

Session 14 - Real Calibrations.
Display session, Monday, June 08
Atlas Ballroom,

[14.06] Fabrication, Assembly and Testing of the Reflection Grating Arrays aboard XMM

A. Rasmussen, J. Cottam, S. Kahn, M. Sako, J. Spodek (Columbia Astrophysics Lab, Columbia U.), T. Decker (C.A.L. West), A. Brinkman, J. den Herder, F. Paerels (SRON)

The Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) aboard XMM is a high throughput, dispersive soft X-Ray spectrometer designed to operate with a resolving power of a few hundred between 5 and 35 Angstroms in first order. Arrays of grating replicas (RGAs), assembled to work as single dispersive optics, intercept roughly 45Mirror Module (MM) exit apertures on two of the three nested-shell X-Ray telescopes. Dispersed light is read out on the two, 300mm long, back-illuminated CCD arrays, housed in the RGS focal-plane cameras (RFCs). In short, XMM/RGS offers unrivaled soft X-Ray spectroscopic collection area.

The two flight model RGAs were assembled at Columbia Astrophysics Lab and have already undergone end-to-end testing: both at MPE/Panter and at the XMM Vertical Facility (Centre Spatial de Liege). Results from these measurement campaigns will be presented, and they indicate the expected flight performance of the XMM/RGS spectrometer system.

Program listing for Monday