Measured Soft X-Ray Spectra of Cas A from the Second Micro-X Sounding Rocket Flight

Presentation #303.03 in the session Missions and Instruments.

by Josh Fuhrman, J.S. Adams, R. Baker, S.R. Bandler, N. Bastidon, D. Castro, M.E. Danowski, W.B. Doriese, M.E. Eckart, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, D.C. Goldfinger, S.N.T. Heine, G. Hilton, A.J.F. Hubbard, D. Jardin, R.L. Kelley, C.A. Kilbourne, S.W. Leman, R.E. Manzagol-Harwood, D. McCammon, P.H.H. Oakley, T. Okajima, F.S. Porter, C.D. Reintsema, J. Rutherford, T. Saab, K. Sato, P. Serlemitsos, S.J. Smith, Y. Soong, and P. Wikus

Published onJul 01, 2023

Micro-X is an x-ray space telescope and NASA sounding rocket payload that had its second flight on August 21, 2022 to observe the supernova remnant Cas A. The flight was a comprehensive success and marked the first astrophysical x-ray observation with Transition-Edge Sensors (TES) and their Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) readouts in space. Micro-X specializes in high-resolution and spatially resolved spectra of diffuse, soft x-ray sources. The 128-pixel detector array paired with the onboard x-ray mirror has an effective 11.8 arcmin field of view, and was exposed to Cas A during a 300 second observation period. We present the measured Cas A spectra and the general payload performance in second flight.