0000000000523231
AUTHOR
Søren Møller Pedersen
Ariel: Enabling planetary science across light-years
Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, was adopted as the fourth medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme to be launched in 2029. During its 4-year mission, Ariel will study what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve, by surveying a diverse sample of about 1000 extrasolar planets, simultaneously in visible and infrared wavelengths. It is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structures of hundreds of transiting exoplanets, enabling planetary science far beyond the boundaries of the Solar System. The payload consists of an off-axis Cassegrain telescope (primary mirror 1100 mm x 730 mm e…
JEM–X inflight performance
We summarize the inflight performance of JEM-X, the X-ray monitor on the INTEGRAL mission during the initial ten months of operations. The JEM-X instruments have now been tuned to stable operational conditions. The performance is found to be close to the pre-launch expectations. The ground calibrations and the inflight calibration data permit to determine the instruments characteristics to fully support the scientific data analysis. Reglero Velasco, Victor, Victor.Reglero@uv.es ; Martinez Nuñez, Silvia, Silvia.Martinez@uv.es
Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, Instrument and First Results
The Atmosphere-Space Interaction Monitor (ASIM) is an observatory mounted outside the Columbus module on the International Space Station. It has been operational since April 13th, 2018. It contains two instruments: The Modular X- and Gamma-ray Sensor (MXGS) and The Modular Multispectral Imaging Array (MMIA). The objective of ASIM is to monitor thunderstorms and auroras, including lightning discharges, especially discharges upwards above thunderstorms. This paper presents the instrument package and some first results.
JEM-X: three years in space
We report on the technical and scientific performance of JEM-X, the X-ray monitor on ESA's INTEGRAL mission. INTEGRAL has now been in orbit for more than three years, and the mission is foreseen to be extended until the end of 2010. Overall, JEM-X performs very well, and can be expected to continue to do so for the duration of the mission. We discuss in some detail the operational experiences and the problems encountered with the microstrip detectors caused by the space environment and give one example of the interesting scientific results obtained. The analysis software is still being improved on, and we discuss briefly the significance of these improvements.
The Modular X- and Gamma-Ray Sensor (MXGS)of the ASIM Payload on the International Space Station
The Modular X- and Gamma-ray Sensor (MXGS) is an imaging and spectral X- and Gamma-ray instrument mounted on the starboard side of the Columbus module on the International Space Station. Together with the Modular Multi-Spectral Imaging Assembly (MMIA) (Chanrion et al. this issue) MXGS constitutes the instruments of the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) (Neubert et al. this issue). The main objectives of MXGS are to image and measure the spectrum of X- and γ-rays from lightning discharges, known as Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs), and for MMIA to image and perform high speed photometry of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) and lightning discharges. With these two instruments sp…