REX: X-ray experiment on the water recovery rocket

Abstract

This paper presents Rocket Experiment (REX) that was part of a dual-payload rocket campaign for NASA’s sounding rocket Black Brant IX with water recovery technology. This mission was a suborbital sounding rocket flight that was launched and recovered on April 4, 2018 and targeted the Vela supernova remnant. The purpose of REX was to classify the Technology Readiness Level of onboard devices designed for space applications. The devices were two wide-field X-ray telescopes consisting of a combination of Lobster-Eye (LE) optics with an uncooled Timepix detector (256px×256px @ 55μm), and additional sensors. The first telescope uses a two-dimensional combination of LE modules with a focal length of 1m and a Field of View (FOV) of 1.0°×1.2° and operates in the energy range of 3–60keV. The second telescope was a one-dimensional LE with a focal length of 243mm and a FOV of 2.7°×8.0° for the energy range 3–40keV. The X-ray telescopes were supplemented by a camera in the visible spectrum with 1.280px×1,024px resolution, which was used to obtain images of the observed sources and to verify the resulting pointing of the rocket carrier. Other devices also include infrared array sensors and inertial measurement units tested for future small satellite missions. The data handler and communication system were built using the Robot Operating System, and both the system and the electronics were deployed and operated in-flight. The hardware was successfully recovered after the launch and the data were extracted.