The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) is one of two candidate mission concepts selected for Phase-A study for the new NASA Astrophysics Probe Explorer (APEX) mission class, with a planned launch in 2032. The X-ray camera for AXIS is under joint development by the X-ray Astronomy and Observational Cosmology (XOC) Group at Stanford, the MIT Kavli Institute (MKI), and MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL). To accelerate development efforts and meet the AXIS mission requirements, XOC has developed a twin beamline testing system, capable of providing the necessary performance, flexibility, and robustness. We present design details, simulations, and performance results for the newer of the two beamlines, constructed and optimized to test and characterize the first full-size MIT-LL AXIS prototype detectors, operating with the Stanford-developed Multi-Channel Readout Chip (MCRC) integrated readout electronics system. The XOC X-ray beamline design is forward-looking and flexible, with a modular structure adaptable to a wide range of detector technologies identified by the Great Observatories Maturation Program (GOMAP) that span the X-ray to near-infrared wavelengths.
@article{arxiv.2508.14177,
title = {Design, development, and commissioning of a flexible test setup for the AXIS prototype detector},
author = {Abigail Y. Pan and Haley R. Stueber and Tanmoy Chattopadhyay and Steven W. Allen and Marshall W. Bautz and Kevan Donlon and Catherine E. Grant and Sven Hermann and Beverly LaMarr and Andrew Malonis and Eric D. Miller and Glenn Morris and Peter Orel and Artem Poliszczuk and Gregory Prigozhin and Dan Wilkins},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.14177},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
To appear in SPIE Optics + Photonics proceedings 2025