In-flight energy calibration for the X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers on the solar-A satellite

Abstract

The electronically gated in-flight energy calibration is applied to the X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers on a SOLAR-A satellite. The NaI X-ray spectrometer covering the 20–400 keV energy band is calibrated by an 241Am radioactive source which decays by the simultaneous emission of 60 keV X-rays and 5.48 MeV alpha-particles. The X-ray calibration spectrum is accumulated in coincidence with an event tag pulse generated by the simultaneous detection of an X-ray and an alpha-particle. The BGO gamma-ray spectrometer covering the 0.2–10 MeV energy band is calibrated by a 60Co radioactive source which decays by the simultaneous emission of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV gamma-rays and a beta-ray (maximum energy is 313 keV). The gamma-ray calibration spectrum is accumulated in a manner similar to the X-ray spectrometer. Since the present method enables to select the calibration pulse without the disadvantage of introducing extra pulses, it is suitable for a space experiment where external conditions and background counting rates can significantly change.