ASTRO-F/IRC

[PS File]

Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard ASTRO-F (IRIS) : design overview and current status

Hidenori Watarai^a, Saneyuki Fujita^a,Daisuke Ishihara^b, Woojung Kim^a, Ippei Maeda^a,
Hideo Matsuhara^a, Toshio Matsumoto^a, Hiroshi Murakami^a, Taketoshi Negishi^b, Takashi Onaka^b,
Takafumi Ootsubo^b, Norihide Takeyama^b, Kazunori Uemizu^a, Munetaka Ueno^c
and Takehiko Wada^a.
^aThe Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara,
Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan
^bDepartment of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
^cDepartment of Earth Science and Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Meguro-ku,
Tokyo 153-8902, Japan

Abstract:

The design overview and current development status of the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard the Japanese infrared space mission, ASTRO-F (commonly called as the Infrared Imaging Surveyor; IRIS), are presented. The IRC is one of the focal plane instruments of ASTRO-F and will make imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy observations in the wide spectral range of the near- to mid-infrared of $2 - 26 \mu$m. ASTRO-F will be brought into an IRAS-type sun-synchronous polar orbit. The IRC will be operated in the pointing mode, in which the telescope will be pointed at a fixed target position on the sky for about 10 minutes. The pointed observation may be scheduled up to three times per orbit. The IRC has three channels: NIR ($2 - 5 \mu$m), MIR-S ( $5 - 12 \mu$m) and MIR-L ( $12 - 26 \mu$m). All of the three channels use refractive optics. Each channel has a field-of-view of $10' \times 10'$ with nearly diffraction-limited spatial resolution. The NIR and MIR-S channels simultaneously observe the same field on the sky, while the MIR-L observes the sky about 20' away from the NIR/MIR-S position. State-of-the-art large format array detectors manufactured by Raytheon/IRCoE are employed for the IRC. The NIR channel uses a $512 \times 412$ InSb array, and $256 \times 256$ Si:As IBC arrays are used for the MIR channels. Fabrication of the proto-model has been completed and the preliminary performance test is under way.

Infrared camera, infrared instrumentation, space mission, ASTRO-F