ESA ATHENA mission
Investigating calibration anomalies for the X-ray space telescope
ATHENA is an X-ray space telescope that will launch in the 2030s. The Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) was taking care of various aspects of the X-ray detectors; I was looking at why the calibration instrument was glowing for longer than it should have.
The tolerance for lost observation time on a >$1B mission is minimal, so I sought to track down the physical mechanism behind this anomaly. Presented findings to folks smarter than me — including a rebuttal of the leading hypothesis at the time.
Status: Completed
Skills: Experimental, Mathematics, Signal processing, X-ray spectroscopy
Time period: January 20, 2023