Current Science

M. Shanmugam ¹, S. V. Vadawale ¹, Arpit R. Patel ¹, Hitesh Kumar Adalaja ¹, N. P. S. Mithun ¹, Tinkal Ladiya ¹, Shiv Kumar Goyal ¹, Neeraj K. Tiwari ¹, Nishant Singh ¹, Sushil Kumar ¹, Deepak Kumar Painkra ¹, Y. B. Acharya ¹, Anil Bhardwaj ¹, A. K. Hait ², A. Patinge ², Abinandhan Kapoor ³, H. N. Suresh Kumar ³, Neeraj Satya ³, Gaurav Saxena ⁴, Kalpana Arvind ⁴

Affiliations
1 Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad 380 009, IN
2 Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad 380 015, IN
3 U. R. Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru 560 017, IN
4 Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems, Bengaluru 560 058, IN

Abstract

Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) is one of the scientific instruments onboard Chandrayaan-2 orbiter. The XSM along with instrument CLASS (Chandra’s Large Area soft X-ray Spectrometer) comprise the remote X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy experiment of Chandrayaan- 2 mission with an objective to determine the elemental composition of the lunar surface on a global scale. XSM instrument will measure the solar X-rays in the energy range of 1–15 keV using state-of-the-art silicon drift detector. The flight model of the XSM payload has been designed, realized and characterized for various operating parameters. XSM provides energy resolution of ~180 eV at 5.9 keV with high time cadence of one second. The X-ray spectra of the Sun observed with XSM will also contribute to the study of solar corona. The detailed description and the performance characteristics of the XSM instrument are presented in this article.

Keywords

Lunar X-Rays, Silicon Drift Detector, Solar X-Rays, X-Ray Spectrometer.

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