MAXIE: a mechanical scanning auroral X-ray imaging experiment for flight on a TIROS satellite

Summary form only given, as follows. The satellite borne X-ray imager MAXIE (Magnetospheric Atmospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment) is planned for flight as the ONR-401 experiment on the NOAA-I/TIROS spacecraft to be launched into an 800-km polar orbit in late 1992/early 1993. The instrument maps intensities and energy spectra of X-rays from 4 keV to 100 keV produced by electrons that precipitate into the atmosphere. MAXIE is composed of two counter-rotating heads that have 16 fields-of-view scanning parallel to the spacecraft orbit plane. Each of the heads contains eight cooled solid-state detector modules consisting of two SiLi sensors each. With mechanical scanning, the instrument will obtain high-resolution X-ray imaging data on auroral and substorm processes with a spatial resolution as fine as 80 km, a temporal resolution of 0.25 s, and a selectable scan rate (>5 s per image)