NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Collections About News Help Login
Back to Results
The Focusing Optics X-Ray Solar Imager: FOXSIThe Focusing Optics x-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a sounding rocket payload funded under the NASA Low Cost Access to Space program to test hard x-ray (HXR) focusing optics and position-sensitive solid state detectors for solar observations. Today's leading solar HXR instrument, the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) provides excellent spatial (2 arcseconds) and spectral (1 keV) resolution. Yet, due to its use of an indirect imaging system, the derived images have a low dynamic range (typically <10) and sensitivity. These limitations make it difficult to study faint x-ray sources in the solar corona which are crucial for understanding the particle acceleration processes which occur there. Grazing-incidence x-ray focusing optics combined with position-sensitive solid state detectors can overcome both of these limitations enabling the next breakthrough in understanding impulsive energy release on the Sun. The FOXSI project is led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for the grazing-incidence optics, while the Astro-H team at JAXA/ISAS has provided double-sided silicon strip detectors. FOXSI is a pathfinder for the next generation of solar hard x-ray spectroscopic imagers. Such observatories will be able to image the non-thermal electrons within the solar flare acceleration region, trace their paths through the corona, and provide essential quantitative measurements such as energy spectra, density, and energy content in accelerated electrons.
Document ID
20110022985
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Krucker, Saem (University of Applied Sciences Switzerland)
Christe, Steven (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Glesener, Lindsay (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Ishikawa, Shin-nosuke (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
McBride, Stephen (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Glaser, David (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Turin, Paul (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Lin, R. P. (Kyunghee Univ. Taejon, Korea, Republic of)
Gubarev, Mikhail (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Ramsey, Brian (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Saito, Shinya (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science Sagamihara, Japan)
Tanaka, Yasuyuki (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science Sagamihara, Japan)
Takahashi, Tadayuki (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science Sagamihara, Japan)
Watanabe, Shin (Tokyo Univ. Hongo, Japan)
Tajima, Takaaki (Stanford Univ. Stanford, CA, United States)
Tajima, Hiroyasu (Nagoya Univ. Nagoya, Japan)
Masuda, Satoshi (Nagoya Univ. Nagoya, Japan)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2011
Subject Category
Optics
Report/Patent Number
GSFC.JA.5180.2011
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: WCU R31-10016
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNH06ZDA001N
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

Related Records

There are no records associated with this record.
No Preview Available