Design and Performance of the ICON EUV Spectrograph

• Published in: Space science reviews Vol. 212; no. 1-2; pp. 631 - 643
• Main Authors: Sirk, Martin M., Korpela, Eric J., Ishikawa, Yuzo, Edelstein, Jerry, Wishnow, Edward H., Smith, Christopher, McCauley, Jeremy, McPhate, Jason B., Curtis, James, Curtis, Travis, Gibson, Steven R., Jelinsky, Sharon, Lynn, Jeffrey A., Marckwordt, Mario, Miller, Nathan, Raffanti, Michael, Van Shourt, William, Stephan, Andrew W., Immel, Thomas J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-10-2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics; Astrophysics and Astroparticles; Design; Dispersion; Emission lines; Image resolution; Ionosphere; Lower ionosphere; Mass spectrometry; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Planetology; Satellites; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Spectral emissivity; Spectral resolution; The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission; Extreme ultraviolet; Spectrograph; Instrumentation; Ionosphere; Extreme Ultraviolet
• ISSN: 0038-6308; 1572-9672
• DOI: 10.1007/s11214-017-0384-2

We present the design, implementation, and on-ground performance measurements of the Ionospheric Connection Explorer EUV spectrometer,
ICON EUV
, a wide field (
17
∘
×
12
∘
) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) imaging spectrograph designed to observe the lower ionosphere at tangent altitudes between 100 and 500 km. The primary targets of the spectrometer, which has a spectral range of 54–88 nm, are the O
ii
emission lines at 61.6 nm and 83.4 nm. Its design, using a single optical element, permits a
0
.
∘
26
imaging resolution perpendicular to the spectral dispersion direction with a large (
12
∘
) acceptance parallel to the dispersion direction while providing a slit-width dominated spectral resolution of
R
∼
25
at 58.4 nm. Pre-flight calibration shows that the instrument has met all of the science performance requirements.