A Sounding Rocket Mission to Study the Solar Soft X-RAY and EUV Emission using Transition-Edge Sensor Technology

摘要

We are developing a new sounding rocket payload, the Advanced Technology Solar Spectroscopic Imager (ATSSI), that will use an 8 x 8 array of transition edge sensors (TES) to obtain true spectroheliograms in a spectral bandpass spanning approx 50 eV to approx 3 keV. The TES array will be flown at the focus of a Wolter I telescope, where it will image a 3 arc-min by 3 arc-min field of view with a pixel resolution of approx 6 arc-sec. In this way, it will obtain aprpox 1000 individual spectra with an expected average energy resolution of approx3 eV FWHM. In addition to the TES array, the ATSSI will employ six multilayer telescopes with bandpasses centered on atomic lines at 17.1 A (Fe XVII), 195.1 A (Fe XII), 171.1 A (Fe IX), 57.9 A (Mg X), 98.3 A (Ne VIII), and 150.1 A (O VI). Two additional telescopes with bandpasses centered at 1550 A (Fe IX), 57.9 A (Mg X), 98.3 A (Ne VIII), and 150.1 A (O VI). Two additional telescopes with bandpasses centered at 1550 A (C IV) and 1216 A (H I) will also be used. The eight narrowband telescopes will provide high spatial resolution (<= 1 arc-sec), full-disk solar images and will be complemented by two grating slit spectroheliographs. One grating will obtain high resolution spectroheliograms between 2750 A and 2850 A (for Mg II h- and k-line studies), and the other will be multilayer-based and will probe the Fe IX/X - O V/VI complex around 171 A (73 eV). With this set of instruments, we expect to explore more fully the nature of the energy flow between small-scale coronal, chromospheric and transition region structures, as well as to address the issue of what mechanisms are responsible for heating the quiescent solar atmosphere.