PILOT balloon-borne experiment in-flight performance
Abstract
The Polarized Instrument for Long-wavelength Observation of the Tenuous interstellar medium (PILOT) is a balloon-borne experiment aiming at measuring the polarized emission of thermal dust at a wavelength of 240 mm (1.2 THz). A first PILOT flight (flight#1) of the experiment took place from Timmins, Ontario, Canada, in September 2015 and a second flight (flight#2) took place from Alice Springs, Australia in april 2017. In this paper, we present the inflight performance of the instrument during these two flights. We concentrate on performances during flight#2, but allude to flight#1 performances if significantly different. We first present a short description of the instrument and the flights. We determine the time constants of our detectors combining inflight information from the signal decay following high energy particle impacts (glitches) and of our internal calibration source. We use these time constants to deconvolve the data timelines and analyse the optical quality of the instrument as measured on planets. We then analyse the structure and polarization of the instrumental background. We measure the detector response flat field and its time variations using the signal from the residual atmosphere and of our internal calibration source. Finally, we analyze the detector noise spectral and temporal properties. The in-flight performances are found to be satisfactory and globally in line with expectations from ground calibrations. We conclude by assessing the expected in-flight sensitivity of the instrument in light of the above in-flight performances.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1804.05645,
title = {PILOT balloon-borne experiment in-flight performance},
author = {A. Mangilli and G. Foënard and J. Aumont and A. Hughes and B. Mot and J-Ph. Bernard and A. Lacourt and I. Ristorcelli and Y. Longval and P. Ade and Y. André and L. Bautista and P. deBernardis and O. Boulade and F. Bousqet and M. Bouzit and V. Buttice and M. Charra and B. Crane and E. Doumayrou and J. P. Dubois and C. Engel and M. Griffin and S. Grabarnik and P. Hargrave and R. Laureijs and B. Leriche and S. Maestre and B. Maffei and C. Marty and W. Marty and S. Masi and R. Misawa and J. Montel and L. Montier and J. Narbonne and F. Pajot and E. Pérot and J. Pimentao and G. Pisano and N. Ponthieu and L. Rodriguez and G. Roudil and M. Salatino and G. Savini and O. Simonella and M. Saccoccio and S. Stever and J. Tauber and C. Tibbs and C. Tucker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.05645},
year = {2019}
}