Initial performance of the aspect system on the Chandra Observatory: Post-facto aspect reconstruction

摘要

the aspect system of the Chandra Observatory plays a key role in realizing the full potential of Chandra's X-ray optics and detecotrs. To achieve the highest spatial and spectral resolution (for grating observations), an accurate post-facto time history of the spacecraft attitude and itnernal alignment in needed. The CXC has developed aa suite of tools which process sensor data from the aspect camera assembly and gyroscopes, and produce the spacecraft aspect solution. In this poster, the deisng of the aspect pipelien software is briefly described, followed by details of aspect system perofrmance during the first eight months of flight. The two key metrics of aspect performance are: image reconstruction accuracy, which emasures the X-ray iamge blurring introduced by aspect; and celestial location, which is the accuracy of detected source positions in absolute sky coordiantes.