KEYWORDS: Software engineering, Telescope instrument control software, Software development, Sensors, Polarimetry, Satellites, Interfaces, Process control
The eXTP (enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry) mission is a joint large mission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and European partners designed to study the state of matter under extreme conditions of density, gravity and magnetism. One of the four major instruments on eXTP is the Wide Field Monitor (WFM) which consist of 3 pairs of coded mask cameras with a total combined Field of View (FoV) of 90×180 degrees at zero response. With its enormous FoV, a source localization accuracy of 1 arcmin and an energy range of 2-50 keV the primary objective of the WFM is to provide triggers for the pointing instruments on the eXTP with less than one day reaction time. Its large area and resolution will be enough to detect state changes in compact objects as well. The WFM instrument is controlled by the Data Handling Unit located inside the Instrument Control Unit. The challenging requirement of broadcasting time and end-position of the triggering event to end-users in 30s necessitates special on-board data processing software (the eXTP burst online trigger, or XBOT), a hardware that can perform such processing and associated control software that would feed the raw data from the cameras into the XBOT and relaying alerts to the on-board data handling unit on the spacecraft side. Moreover, the WFM software performs several tasks related to the science data preparation, telecommand and telemetry management, and control of the cameras utilizing four LEON4 processing cores of E698 PM SoC from OCE Technology. This presentation discusses the details of the processing hardware and the interaction between different software components of the WFM on eXTP.
The eXTP (enhanced x-ray timing and polarimetry) mission is a major project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), with a large involvement of Europe. The scientific payload of eXTP includes four instruments: the SFA (spectroscopy focusing array) and the PFA (polarimetry focusing array)—led by China —the LAD (large area detector) and the WFM (wide field monitor)—led by Europe (Italy and Spain). They offer a unique simultaneous wide-band x-ray timing and polarimetry sensitivity. The WFM is a wide field x-ray monitor instrument in the 2-50 keV energy range, consisting of an array of six coded mask cameras with a field of view of 180°x90° at an angular resolution of 5 arcmin and four silicon drift detectors in each camera. Its unprecedented combination of large field of view and imaging down to 2 keV will allow eXTP to make important discoveries of the variable and transient x-ray sky and is essential in detecting transient black holes, that are part of the primary science goals of eXTP, so that they can be promptly followed up with other instruments on eXTP and elsewhere.
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