Impacts on the IXO observing efficiency

Publication date: 31 July 2010

Authors: Garcia, M., et al.

Journal: Proc. SPIE
Volume: 7732
Year: 2010

Copyright: SPIE

The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) has a top level requirement that the observing efficiency be 85%. This is a challenging requirement, given that the observing efficiencies for CXO and XMM-Newton are between 60% and 70%. However, the L2 orbit for IXO means that it will not be subject to the earth block/radiation zone effects that are seen for CXO and XMM-Newton. Outside of these effects the efficiencies for CXO and XMM-Newton do approach 85%, so this requirement appears achievable for IXO. In this paper we itemize the effects which impact the observing efficiency, in order to guide the design of the observatory. Meeting the 85% requirement should be possible but will require careful attention to detail.

This paper was presented at the SPIE conference on Astronomical Instrumentation 2010 conference.

Link to Publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.857437

Last Update: 13 September 2010