Design and on-orbit status of the trigger system for the DAMPE mission

Abstract

DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), the first Chinese astronomical satellite, was successfully launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on 2015 Dec. 17. DAMPE consists of four subdetectors: Plastic Scintillator array Detector (PSD), Silicon-Tungsten tracKer-converter (STK), Bismuth Germanium Oxide (BGO) imaging calorimeter and NeUtron Detector (NUD). The global hardware trigger signal, which is generated by hits from the BGO calorimeter and the trigger logic board in the data acquisition system (DAQ), is responsible for event selection and DAQ synchronization of DAMPE. On orbit, to improve the detection efficiency, different trigger logics are used for event selection in different regions of latitude. The DAMPE trigger system compresses the average on-orbit trigger rate to 60Hz and reduces science data mass to less than 13GB per day to meet the requirement for the satellite’s data link. The whole trigger system has run stably up to now, ensuring excellent on-orbit operation of DAMPE.