The First Wide-field X-ray Imaging Telescope for Observations of Charge Exchange

Soft x-ray emission from the interaction of solar wind with the earth's exosphere provides a very significant foreground to all soft x-ray observations. It is essential that astrophysicists understand and model foreground emission in detail. The first end-to-end demonstration of a very wide field soft x-ray imager instrument enables solar wind charge exchange global observations near the magneto-sphere that is a spatially, temporally, and spectrally varying foreground for all X-ray observations.

We will demonstrate a full, end-to-end, lobster-eye optic instrument at GSFC. The STORM prototype is fully self-contained, including integrated pre-amps, HV power supplies, and C&DH. The workplan includes integrating the optics panels into the optics holder, developing the C&DH code on the integrated FPGA, deploying the instrument in GSFC's 100m and/or 500m x-ray beamlines and measuring end-to-end performance including image quality and throughput as a function of x-ray energy.