Leadership and Capability Development in Suborbital Space Research, 15-R8207
Principal Investigators
Glenn T. Laurent
Donald M. Hassler
Inclusive Dates: 01/01/10 – Current
Background — The Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment (RAISE) sounding rocket payload is an extremely high-speed scanning-slit imaging spectrograph designed to observe the dynamics and heating of the solar chromosphere and corona on time scales as short as 100 ms, with 1 arcsec spatial resolution and a velocity sensitivity of 1 to 2 km/s. The maiden flight of RAISE (Flight 36.219 US) was launched August 23, 2010, with all subsystems working properly, but suffered from an alignment shift at launch that resulted in missing the targeted active region and pointing off-limb by several arcminutes.
Approach — The primary objectives of this project are to:
Identify and correct the causes of alignment and/or focus failures associated with the maiden flight of the RAISE sounding rocket.
Once the issues associated with the alignment/focus failures have been identified, use this knowledge to correct the problem to have a successful re-flight.
Analyze the data and publish the scientific results from this second flight to be in a good position to win future sounding rocket programs and other instrument development program funding.
Secondary objectives include developing leadership experience and visibility of an SwRI staff member as a viable principal investigator, with publishable data and a success record leading to future rocket program funding and science opportunities.
Accomplishments — Considerable progress had been made during the initial nine months of funding. All calibration equipment (UV vacuum collimator, Zybian camera) needed for final alignment and focus verification has been fully tested and calibrated. Final testing of replacement flight vacuum skins and a flight chromospheric slit-jaw camera (prior to delivery) is under way.
Alignment Shift Identification – Post-flight alignment tests of the RAISE payload have revealed a significant alignment shift of the nominal primary mirror position relative to the SPARCS LISS sensor, causing the telescope pointing to be shifted off of the solar limb.
Flight Skin Design – New flight vacuum skins have been manufactured with removable vacuum doors for each of the flight optical hardware components (primary mirror, grating, detectors) to facilitate adjustments during the alignment procedure.
Zybian Camera – A Zybian (low-light) optical camera has been procured for calibrating the RAISE payload. The camera will be temporarily mounted on the RAISE optical payload to monitor the slit plane focus in real time during optical alignment.
Chromospheric Slit-Jaw Camera – A replacement chromospheric slit jaw camera has been designed and ordered for the purposes of risk mitigation of future misalignments in flight.
UV Vacuum Collimator – Development of a UV vacuum collimator is nearing completion for use at SwRI's facility in Boulder, Colo., for end-to-end alignment and focus checks of the RAISE instrument. The vacuum collimator has been autocollimated in air using a knife-edge technique, with the Zybian camera monitoring the out-of-focus spot.
