1. Martin C. Weisskopf AAS 2011 May 23
The Chandra X-ray Observatory:
Current Status and Future Prospects
Martin C. Weisskopf
AAS
2011 May 23

2. Involved more than 1350 students and postdocs
Chandra involves and interests the community
2979 distinct PIs and CoIs in cycles 1-11
~200 new PIs and Co-Is per year
Involved more than 1350 students and postdocs
Averaging over ~500 papers per year
Consistantly oversubscribed (>5)
Independent Large Telescope Citation Study
(Trimble & Ceja 2008)
(pre-Spitzer)
Citations: over 3 years following publication

3. Chandra continues to give us new insights
Tennant et al. 2011

4. Working with other obervatories: Chandra & Fermi-LAT

5. The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare!
The images to the left (2010 Sep, ObsID13139), and the right (2010 Oct, ObsID13146) were recently taken using ACIS-S3 in the proposed mode. The central figure is the time-corrected difference between these two images where red indicates the flux has faded and blue that it has brightened.

6. The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare!

7. Spacecraft is in excellent health – almost in the 13th year
Observatory status
Spacecraft is in excellent health – almost in the 13th year
Designed for 3 years with a goal of 5
All redundant systems are available except one pair of gyro rotors that has been swapped to a backup.
One of the switched gyro rotors is fully healthy and the second has reserve life. Chandra can operate with one rotor from each set
Thermal insulation has slowly degraded
Requires increased pitch restrictions and limits on constrained observations
Mission planning has managed impacts
Independent Large Telescope Citation Study
(Trimble & Ceja 2008)
(pre-Spitzer)
Citations: over 3 years following publication

8. Molecular contamination continues to build up on the ACIS filters
Observatory status – continued
Molecular contamination continues to build up on the ACIS filters
Independent Large Telescope Citation Study
(Trimble & Ceja 2008)
(pre-Spitzer)
Citations: over 3 years following publication

9. There will (no doubt) be new challenges as Chandra ages
Observatory status
There will (no doubt) be new challenges as Chandra ages
However, overall observatory performance remains
superb
No known limitations to > 20-yr mission

10. Example future projects
Science Goal
Observations
Measure the expansion history of the universe for 0.5<z<1
X-ray images & spectra for massive clusters
Search for evidence of decaying dark matter particles
X-ray images and spectra of galaxy clusters to test the evolution of fgas to z~1.2
Measure WHIM features to constrain the baryon overdensity
High-resolution spectra of quiescent blazars.
Determine how AGN feedback operates in galaxies and clusters of galaxies
Deep images galaxies and clusters and high-resolution spectra of bright AGN
Measure the luminosity and evolution functions AGN
Extend the CDFS survey inosities and higher z.
Trace evolution of temperature, density, pressure and velocity of shocked material in young SNR
Deep images and spectra of starburst galaxies to trace the metals and hot gas
Measure mass and radius for bursting NS
Grating spectra of X-ray binaries in outburst
Extend mass and radius measurements for a number of neutron stars
High-resolution spectroscopy to determine distances together with burst data from other satellites

11. The opportunity for exploration and discovery with Chandra remains as high today as it was at launch