Past political opportunities: Intercosmos 1967 no launch payments Kapustin Yar Sounding rockets 7 launches Plesetsk Orbital missions 3 launches 1994 Coronas-I 1995 Interball-Tail 2001 Coronas-F

The First Polish Space experiment Pin-hole cameras

SphinX soft X-ray spectrophotometer The Team: PI Janusz Sylwester Mirek Kowalinski : Project Manager Jarek Bakała: Project Constructor Szymon Gburek: Project Scientist Marek Siarkowski, Barbara Sylwester, Zbigniew Kordylewski, Piotr Podgórski, Witold Trzebiński, Stefan Płocieniak, Anna Kępa FIAN: Dr. Sergey Kuzin, TESIS PI MEPhI: Yury Kotov, CORONAS-Photon PM AI CzAS: Dr. Franta Farnik Prof. Fabio Reale, INAFA, Palermo University Prof. Ken Phillips, UCL, London

CORONAS-F CORONAS-F launch, orbit & pointing 31 July 2001, polar orbit, 95min, ~500 km semi-Sun-synchronous x 10, SS-14 Cyclone

RT-2/G RT-2/S RT-2/GA PINGUIN KONUS-RF PHOKA TESIS STEP-F Magnetometer pressure vessel N-2M KONUS-RF-anti Launch is fixed to the last week of 2008 ! SphinX

Full Solar disk UV & soft X-ray monitors InstrumentRadiation bandsTemporal resolutionDetector type SphinX Space Res. Center, Poland PI J. Sylwester P.N. Lebedev PI, Russia MEPhI, Russia Soft X-rays 0.5 keV– 15 keV Solar disk radiation monitoring up to 10 msec Pure Si PIN-diode 500μm thick, aperture 19.96, and mm 2 (Amptek, USA) PHOKA MEPhI, Russia PI A.Kochemasov 4 channels (nm) Visible, FUV & XUV <1100; ; & <11 Solar disk radiation monitoring 2 sec Occultation mode 0.1 sec AXUV-100G 10mmx10mm (International Radiation Detectors, CA, USA) SOKOL IZMIRAN, Russia PI V.D.Kuznetsov 7 Visible & NUV channels (nm) 1500, 1100, 850, 650, 500, 350, 280 (bandwidth <10%) Solar disk radiation monitoring 30 sec Photodiodes with filter (effect. square

TESIS assembly of instruments TESIS assembly of instruments for XUV imaging spectroscopy of the Sun It is advanced version of the SPIRIT instrument

SphinX & TESIS TESIS SphinX

Instruments for charge particle measurements Magnetometer SM-8M three components of magnetic field in the range of –55  T … +55  T FGU NPP “Geologorazvedka”, St-Petersburg, Russia; MEPhI, Russia PI V.N.Yurov 3-axis magnetometer

SphinX construction EUV filters (doubly aluminized Mylar) Photometer –Collimators (+-2.5 deg) –Three apertures –D1, D2, D3 Shutter –Stepper motor FFU –Filters –Targets –D4 Electronics –Front end Amptek –Digital „our” Controller –Software –reprogramming Heat sink Alignment mirror

Measurement channels φ : 5 mm A: 13.0 mm 2 8 μ s Up to cts/s FWHM: 490 eV P h o t o m e t r i cFFU φ : 4 mm A: 0.26 mm 2 25 μ s Up to cts/s FWHM: 290 eV φ : 4 mm A: mm 2 25 μ s Up to cts/s FWHM: 290 eV φ : 4 mm A: 13.0 mm 2 25 μ s Up to cts/s FWHM: 290 eV Detectors (four units): 256/ 1024 energy bins Amptek, Peltier cooled (-50 deg) Si PIN diodes. Detectors’ support plate thermally connected to external heat radiator via heat sink pipe. Photon arrival time measured to within 2μs (in Time Stamping Mode) Much better energy resolution than gas detectors 2.5 % against 16%, low thermal noise $4000

Expected total count rates Courtesy; Marek Siarkowski

SphinX calibration BESSY synchrotron RAS Meeting 9 May 2008 Janusz Sylwester, Poland: Ongoing and future solar X-ray experimenting March 2nd 2008 D3 Berlin February 26th 2008

How it looks from the tests BESSY Berlin Synchrotron: - All detector linearity: perfect (0.1% ) over keV; dynamic range absolute response known to better than 5% against reference synchrotron source. - pile-up matrices known as measured from X-ray 4 crystal monochromator spectra obtained at 8 energies between 1.5 and 8 keV The BESSY synchrotron input spectrum (red) with overplotted response of SphinX D2 detector (black). Nominal effective areas have been used. The agreement is better than 5% in the energy band where SphinX detectors are the most sensitive.

The measurement environment, bcgd: ~few cts/s up to 10 3 cts/s (SAA) SAA Night RB RB Night Flare CORONAS-F Previous CORONAS-F orbit Important pahases S/C X-ray day S/C optical day S/C optical night S/C X-ray night  Terminator crossing

Time stamping mode D1, D2 or D3 rates < 10 3 /s Time stamping mode from: D1, D2, D3, D4 –2 Bytes for processor time of the detector event start –1 byte for the amplitude –Allows to determine the difference between events to within 2 μ s ~2/1000 accuracy –Absolute timing to within 0.001s against UT Expected rates D1= 10 3 events/s (event: Amplitude 1byte, time 2 bytes)-3 KB/s D2= 10 events/s, D3= 10 events/s, D4= 10 events/s Total: 3Kbytes/s – can last for ~10000s (3 h) each dump – may cover 100% cycle with compression

Waiting time analysis – is the process at low count rate Poissonian? Wheatland, The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 679, Issue 2, pp , 2008 Radioactive sources give an ideal example of the statistics To what degree the arrival times of photons from the „quiet” corona have „no memory” i.e they have the exponential waiting time distribution? (Models for flare statistics assume or predict that flares are independent events- however this is under question) The primary task for the initial part of the mission where the activity is expected to be low.

SphinX convolved spectra (A coronal ) 5 MK 10 MK 25 MK Si S Ar Ca Fe Ni Fe O, Ne,Fe Shape depends on T pure continuum

Predicted behaviour of activity during active phase of Coronas-Photon

Recent GOES & RHESSI

Energy Calibration D1,D2,D3 solar induced fluorescence spectra of pure elements –During flares ~> M1 –Until 10^6 cts collected for each detector –Approximately each month –If v. quiet condition then on the command from the ground for 10 min

Terminator transit: Profile of Earth atmospecric absorption X-ray terminator crossing algorithm operational on board –Predict the entry/exit to within few seconds –Spectra 256 energy bins each 0.1 sec give at least 1 km resolution in the vertical Earth absorption profile –Time stamping or spectral mode depending on the flare flag

SphinX firsts hinX_Instrument_on_CORONAS-PHOTON hinX_Instrument_on_CORONAS-PHOTON SphinX will measure absolute element abundances using line features due to neon, magnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon, calcium, iron and nickel in various levels of solar activity (quiet Sun, active regions and flares). It should therefore be in a strong position to give a definitive answer to the continuing debate about the dependence of coronal abundances of elements on their first ionization potential, the so-called FIP effect. SphinX will obtain the first absolutely calibrated solar X-ray spectra in the keV range. In particular this will help us to understand the RHESSI continuum observations in this difficult range. SphinX will also study quiet coronal heating processes via photon arrival time--distance analysis (the arrival time of an X- ray photon will be measured to a couple of microseconds); X- ray oscillations in the <1 to 500 s period range; and transient ionization in flares.

Instrument satus Flight model at the Moscow „factory” undergoing final electro- magnetic & teelmetry compatibility tests On November 30, TESIS ( a mother instrument for SphinX) is coming for a final maintenance tests to FIAN (MK+WT) will reload the flight programme The Coronas-Photon launch is expected before the end of 2008 a X-mas present? Ground sector of software v1 ready (Czech contribution under guidance od Szymon) –2 mirror servers (Wrocław, Ondrejov) –Automatic data access to FIAN SphinX data stream (~12 hours maximum delay if 2 dumps/24h) –Automatic reduction to Level2 –Data publishing to the public access area (90% data will go there decision taken by the duty scientist) –Automatic flare event catalogue creation start,max, end, class, Tmax, Emmax, rise phase dur L, H, EMmax-Tmax delay –Auxiliary data available: GOES, RHESSI, SOXS

The FFU unit (filter-fluorescence unit) Filter-Fluorescence Unit (FFU) layout This unit will be active all the time: time stamping < 1000 cts/s or spectra (256 bins)