In-flight performance of the solar UV radiometer LYRA/PROBA-2

Y. Stockman; A. BenMoussa; I. Dammasch; J.-M. Defise; M. Dominique; J.-P. Halain; J.-F. Hochedez; S. Koller; W. Schmutz; U. Schühle

doi:10.1117/12.2309149

20 November 2017 In-flight performance of the solar UV radiometer LYRA/PROBA-2

Y. Stockman, A. BenMoussa, I. Dammasch, J.-M. Defise, M. Dominique, J.-P. Halain, J.-F. Hochedez, S. Koller, W. Schmutz, U. Schühle

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Proceedings Volume 10565, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2010; 105650A (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2309149
Event: International Conference on Space Optics—ICSO 2010, 2010, Rhodes Island, Greece

Abstract

LYRA is a solar radiometer, part of the PROBA-2 micro-satellite payload (Fig. 1). The PROBA-2 [1] mission has been launched on 02 November 2009 with a Rockot launcher to a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 725 km. Its nominal operation duration is two years with possible extension of 2 years. PROBA-2 is a small satellite developed under an ESA General Support Technology Program (GSTP) contract to perform an in-flight demonstration of new space technologies and support a scientific mission for a set of selected instruments [2]. PROBA-2 host 17 technological demonstrators and 4 scientific instruments. The mission is tracked by the ESA Redu Mission Operation Center.

One of the four scientific instruments is LYRA that monitors the solar irradiance at a high cadence (> 20 Hz) in four soft X-Ray to VUV large passbands: the “Lyman-Alpha” channel, the “Herzberg” continuum range, the “Aluminium” and “Zirconium” filter channels. The radiometric calibration is traceable to synchrotron source standards [3]. LYRA benefits from wide bandgap detectors based on diamond. It is the first space assessment of these revolutionary UV detectors for astrophysics. Diamond sensors make the instruments radiation-hard and solar-blind (insensitive to the strong solar visible light) and, therefore, visible light blocking filters become superfluous. To correlate the data of this new detector technology, silicon detectors with well known characteristics are also embarked. Due to the strict allocated mass and power budget (5 kg, 5W), and poor priority to the payload needs on such platform, an optimization and a robustness of the instrument was necessary. The first switch-on occured on 16 November 2009. Since then the instrument performances have been monitored and analyzed during the commissioning period. This paper presents the first-light and preliminary performance analysis.

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Y. Stockman, A. BenMoussa, I. Dammasch, J.-M. Defise, M. Dominique, J.-P. Halain, J.-F. Hochedez, S. Koller, W. Schmutz, and U. Schühle "In-flight performance of the solar UV radiometer LYRA/PROBA-2", Proc. SPIE 10565, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2010, 105650A (20 November 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2309149

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