Goals of the Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager (SSAXI-Rocket) rocket experiment

Christopher S. Moore; Jae Sub Hong; Johnny Ho; Sophia A. Sánchez-Maes; Elias Aguirre-Contreras; Isaac Anderson; Carl Barcroft; Juliana Barstow; Ricardo Bruni; David Caldwell; Brendan D'Aquino; Gabriel Dubinsky; Thomas M. Gauron; Leon Golub; Laura A. Hayes; Ed Hertz; Andrew R. Inglis; Almus T. Kenter; Adam Kobelski; Rachel Nere; Ritesh Pandohie; Jeffrey W. Reep; Suzanne Romaine; Sabrina Savage; Crisel Suarez; Zachary Svec; David Theroux; Nicholas Thomas; Amy Winebarger

doi:10.1117/12.3018215

21 August 2024 Goals of the Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager (SSAXI-Rocket) rocket experiment

Christopher S. Moore, Jae Sub Hong, Johnny Ho, Sophia A. Sánchez-Maes, Elias Aguirre-Contreras, Isaac Anderson, Carl Barcroft, Juliana Barstow, Ricardo Bruni, David Caldwell, Brendan D'Aquino, Gabriel Dubinsky, Thomas M. Gauron, Leon Golub, Laura A. Hayes, Ed Hertz, Andrew R. Inglis, Almus T. Kenter, Adam Kobelski, Rachel Nere, Ritesh Pandohie, Jeffrey W. Reep, Suzanne Romaine, Sabrina Savage, Crisel Suarez, Zachary Svec, David Theroux, Nicholas Thomas, Amy Winebarger

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13093, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 1309372 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3018215
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Conference Poster

Abstract

The Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager (SSAXI-Rocket) is a ride-along instrument to the High-Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) Flare NASA sounding rocket launch campaign scheduled for the Spring 2024. In the short 5- minute rocket flight, SSAXI-Rocket will measure the soft X-ray near-peak emission phase of a large solar flare of GOES C-class or greater. The SSAXI-Rocket instrument has peak sensitivity to 10 MK solar plasma, similar to the current Hi-C flare extreme ultraviolet instruments, providing the exploration of the variability in heating and energy transport of solar flares. SSAXI-Rocket combines small X-ray focusing optic (Wolter-I) with onaxis imaging resolution of 9 arcseconds or better and high-speed readout CMOS detector, to image the flare soft X-rays at 5 hertz or faster, with minimized image saturation and pixel signal blooming. These high-time cadence measurements can help uncover the soft X-ray intensity variations which can provide constraints on the intermittent heating processes in the flare magnetic loops. SSAXI-Rocket is the testbed for technology that is planned for future heliophysics and astronomy SmallSat, CubeSat, and large satellite X-ray observatories.

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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Christopher S. Moore, Jae Sub Hong, Johnny Ho, Sophia A. Sánchez-Maes, Elias Aguirre-Contreras, Isaac Anderson, Carl Barcroft, Juliana Barstow, Ricardo Bruni, David Caldwell, Brendan D'Aquino, Gabriel Dubinsky, Thomas M. Gauron, Leon Golub, Laura A. Hayes, Ed Hertz, Andrew R. Inglis, Almus T. Kenter, Adam Kobelski, Rachel Nere, Ritesh Pandohie, Jeffrey W. Reep, Suzanne Romaine, Sabrina Savage, Crisel Suarez, Zachary Svec, David Theroux, Nicholas Thomas, and Amy Winebarger "Goals of the Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager (SSAXI-Rocket) rocket experiment", Proc. SPIE 13093, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2024: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 1309372 (21 August 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3018215

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