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arXiv · 2406.19910

Initial operations of the Soft X-ray Imager onboard XRISM

Abstract

XRISM (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) is an astronomical satellite with the capability of high-resolution spectroscopy with the X-ray microcalorimeter, Resolve, and wide field-of-view imaging with the CCD camera, Xtend. Xtend consists of the mirror assembly (XMA: X-ray Mirror Assembly) and detector (SXI: Soft X-ray Imager). The SXI is composed of CCDs, analog and digital electronics, and a mechanical cooler. After the successful launch on September 6th, 2023 (UT) and subsequent critical operations, the mission instruments were turned on and set up. The CCDs have been kept at the designed operating temperature of $-110^\circ$C after the electronics and cooling system were successfully set up. During the initial operation phase, which continued for more than a month after the critical operations, we verified the observation procedure, stability of the cooling system, all the observation options with different imaging areas and/or timing resolutions, and time-tagged and automated operations including those for South Atlantic Anomaly passages. We optimized the operation procedure and observation parameters including the cooler settings, imaging areas for the small window modes, and event selection algorithm. We summarize our policy and procedure of the initial operations for the SXI. We also report on a couple of issues we faced during the initial operations and lessons learned from them.

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Hiromasa Suzuki, Tomokage Yoneyama, Shogo B. Kobayashi, Hirofumi Noda, Hiroyuki Uchida, Kumiko K. Nobukawa, Kouichi Hagino, Koji Mori, Hiroshi Tomida, Hiroshi Nakajima, Takaaki Tanaka, Hiroshi Murakami, Hideki Uchiyama, Masayoshi Nobukawa, Yoshiaki Kanemaru, Yoshinori Otsuka, Haruhiko Yokosu, Wakana Yonemaru, Hanako Nakano, Kazuhiro Ichikawa, Reo Takemoto, Tsukasa Matsushima, Marina Yoshimoto, Mio Aoyagi, Kohei Shima, Yuma Aoki, Yamato Ito, Kaito Fukuda, Honoka Kiyama, Daiki Aoki, Kaito Fujisawa, Yasuyuki Shimizu, Mayu Higuchi, Masahiro Fukuda, Natsuki Sakamoto, Ryuichi Azuma, Shun Inoue, Takayoshi Kohmura, Makoto Yamauchi, Isamu Hatsukade, Hironori Matsumoto, Hirokazu Odaka, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Tessei Yoshida, Yoshitomo Maeda, Manabu Ishida, Takeshi G. Tsuru, Kazutaka Yamaoka, Takashi Okajima, Takayuki Hayashi, Junko S. Hiraga, Masanobu Ozaki, Tadayasu Dotani, Hiroshi Tsunemi, Kiyoshi Hayashida. 2024-06-28. Initial operations of the Soft X-ray Imager onboard XRISM. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19910

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