Steven Christe [1], L. Glesener [1], S. Krucker [1], B. Ramsey [2], T. Takahashi [3], R. Lin [1]
1 Space Sciences Lab, U.C. Berkeley
2 Marshall Space Flight Center
3 ISAS/JAXA
Presented at AAS/SPD 2009 (link)
Abstract
The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) is a NASA Low Cost Access to Space sounding rocket payload scheduled for launch late 2010. FOXSI will provide imaging spectroscopy with high sensitivity (~50 times RHESSI) and high dynamic range (~100) in hard X-rays (HXR) up to 15 keV. For the first time, it will be possible to search for nonthermal emission of thermal network flares occurring in the quiet corona in order to determine whether they are similar to active region flares. Additionally, FOXSI will extend the active-region flare distribution to events two orders of magnitude smaller than previously observed and determine their contribution to coronal heating. FOXSI is able to achieve this unprecendeted advance in solar HXR observations through the combination of nested HXR optics developped by the Marshall Space Flight Center and novel silicon strip detectors provided by ISAS Japan. The FOXSI mission will provide HXR spectroscopic imaging with an angular resolution of 12″ (FWHM) and ~1 keV energy resolution. FOXSI will be a pathfinder for the future generation of solar HXR spectroscopic imagers.
