Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 1 Instrument Design in the Light of the ISOPHOT Experience Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs ISO Data Centre, ESA

Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 2 Noise –Detector noise increased in orbit w.r.t. lab. meas. –Characteristics difficult to match with theory. –Equal spacing of NDRs allowed to recover from glitches. –Best Ge:Ga curing with bias boost and IR-flashing.

Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 3 System Linearity –De-biasing: CRE gain not matched to low biases. –Pre-amplifiers show non-linear transfer function. –Readout patterns influence signals (reset interval correction, clock frequency dependency). –Detector responsivity depends on flux. – FCS calibration scheme with many cal.-standards covering flux range enabled linearisation. –Missing early photometric assessment at assembly level.

Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 4 Stability –No stable operation of detectors (switching, heaters). –Switch-on effect (longterm transient). –Si:Ga very stable over long periods, Ge:Ga not. –Actuator flashing induces transients (changed in LWS). –Ge:Ga det. show sudden changes in signal. –Redundancy in meas. sequences very important.

Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 5 AOT-Design –Was started when laboratory people started to understand how to use detectors. –Lab team was not sufficiently involved. –Lab. design not close enough to astron. requirements. –AOTs make instrument easy to use but degrade performance (exec. Time, stability). –Number of AOTs increases parameter space further. –Time requirements are actually determined by transient timeconstants and not by S/N. –Longer meas. sequences (multi filter, multi aperture) are “fixed” only by one cal. measurement.

Bernhard Schulz, Rene Laureijs, ISO Data Centre, ESA 6 External Straylight (Sun, Earth, Moon) –No problem for ISO but important if attitude changes (spacecraft roll). Calibration Strategy –Possible configurations led to large parameter space. –Instrument modelling can limit parameter space, but at the cost of systematic errors. –Highest accuracy only achieved by empirical approach. –Hope for better understanding in the future was mostly disappointed.