The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) Mission
Abstract
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission, launched on 13 June 2012, is the first focusing high-energy X-ray telescope in orbit. NuSTAR operates in the band from 3 -- 79 keV, extending the sensitivity of focusing far beyond the ~10 keV high-energy cutoff achieved by all previous X-ray satellites. The inherently low-background associated with concentrating the X-ray light enables NuSTAR to probe the hard X-ray sky with a more than one-hundred-fold improvement in sensitivity over the collimated or coded-mask instruments that have operated in this bandpass. Using its unprecedented combination of sensitivity, spatial and spectral resolution, NuSTAR will pursue five primary scientific objectives, and will also undertake a broad program of targeted observations. The observatory consists of two co-aligned grazing-incidence X-ray telescopes pointed at celestial targets by a three-axis stabilized spacecraft. Deployed into a 600 km, near-circular, 6degree inclination orbit, the Observatory has now completed commissioning, and is performing consistent with pre-launch expectations. NuSTAR is now executing its primary science mission, and with an expected orbit lifetime of ten years, we anticipate proposing a guest investigator program, to begin in Fall 2014.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1301.7307,
title = {The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) Mission},
author = {Fiona A. Harrison and William W. Craig and Finn E. Christensen and Charles J. Hailey and Will W. Zhang and Steven E. Boggs and Daniel Stern and W. Rick Cook and Karl Forster and Paolo Giommi and Brian W. Grefenstette and Yunjin Kim and Takao Kitaguchi and Jason E Koglin and Kristin K. Madsen and Peter H. Mao and Hiromasa Miyasaka and Kaya Mori and Matteo Perri and Michael J. Pivovaroff and Simonetta Puccetti and Vikram R. Rana and Niels J. Westergaard and Jason Willis and Andreas Zoglauer and Hongjun An and Matteo Bachetti and Nicolas M. Barriere and Eric C. Bellm and Varun Bhalerao and Nicolai F. Brejnholt and Felix Fuerst and Carl C. Liebe and Craig B. Markwardt and Melania Nynka and Julia K. Vogel and Dominic J. Walton and Daniel R. Wik and David M. Alexander and Lynn R. Cominsky and Ann E. Hornschemeier and Allan Hornstrup and Victoria M. Kaspi and Greg M. Madejski and Giorgio Matt and Silvano Molendi and David M. Smith and John A. Tomsick and Marco Ajello and David R. Ballantyne and Mislav Balokovic and Diddier Barret and Franz E. Bauer and Roger D. Blandford and W. Niel Brandt and Laura W. Brenneman and James Chiang and Deepto Chakrabarty and Jerome Chenevez and Andrea Comastri and Martin Elvis and Andrew C. Fabian and Duncan Farrah and Chris L. Fryer and Eric V. Gotthelf and Jonathan E. Grindlay and David J. Helfand and Roman Krivonos and David L. Meier and Jon M. Miller and Lorenzo Natalucci and Patrick Ogle and Eran O. Ofek and Andrew Ptak and Stephen P. Reynolds and Jand R. Rigby and Gianpiero Tagliaferri and Stephen E. Thorsett and Ezequiel Treister and C. Megan Urry},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.7307},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
20 pages, 12 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal