Results of the Constellation-X Mission Architecture Study

Details Results of the Constellation-X Mission Architecture Study Results of the Constellation-X Mission Architecture Study

Sep 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999head....4.2618s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #4, #26.18; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.729

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The Constellation X-ray Mission is a proposed high throughput X-ray spectroscopy mission, scheduled to be planned, designed, constructed, launched, and operated in the coming decade. Constellation-X will provide a factor of nearly 100 increase in sensitivity over current high resolution X-ray spectroscopy missions and, in so doing, will obtain high quality spectra for all classes of X-ray sources over a wide range of luminosity and redshift. Cooperatively with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, we have carried out a mission architecture study, consisting of a series of preliminary configuration trades, that considered the mission and payload requirements, launch vehicle capabilities, candidate orbits, costs, and instrument accommodation abilities. We generated a small number of concepts that meet the Constellation-X requirements, and have ranked them based on risk and cost considerations. Our concept for the mission architecture design includes a suite of hard and soft X-ray telescopes, to be launched aboard two Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV). A fixed optical bench, fixed solar array, and fixed sunshade accommodate the required telescope focal length, and provide for the cryogenic microcalorimeter detectors, as well as the other X-ray instruments. An L2 orbit provides for the thermal requirements of the detectors, and offers other advantages. Below, we illuminate these and other considerations, with an emphasis on the accommodation of the instruments in the observatory.

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