Rui Curado Silva, a professor at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) and a researcher at the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), in collaboration with Jorge Maia, a researcher at the University of Beira Interior (UBI), will lead the scientific experiment GLOSS – Gamma-ray Laue Optics and Solid State detectors, launched by the Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX, to the International Space Station of the European Space Agency (ESA), early tomorrow morning, November 5, at 2:29 AM, in Florida. The code name for this launch is Dragon CRS-2 SpX-31.
“For about a year, samples of materials (CZT: cadmium zinc telluride) from the chambers of future gamma-ray telescopes will be exposed to the space environment (orbital radiation, extreme thermal amplitudes, and oxidation). These sensors, when operating in space, degrade and lose sensitivity. To date, the relationship between the exposure time of these sensors to the space environment and the degradation of their performance has never been studied with the required depth,” reveals the professor from FCTUC.
According to the leader of the GLOSS experiment, to observe the Universe in the X-ray and gamma-ray bands (high-energy astrophysics), it is necessary to place telescopes equipped with sensors in space that can capture images of the sky in these bands of the electromagnetic spectrum because the atmosphere absorbs this type of radiation before it reaches the Earth’s surface.
“These sensors will be transported tomorrow to the International Space Station by a Dragon capsule from SpaceX. After the capsule docks with the Space Station, the astronauts will carry the sensors installed on a metal support to the station’s external hatch. Then, a robotic arm from Canada installed outside will collect the sensors from the hatch and transport them to the Bartolomeo platform,” he describes.
This external platform is exposed to the radiation environment, as well as extreme temperature variations, around -150ºC when the Space Station orbits the Earth’s night side, and temperatures around 120°C when the Station is on the sunlit side. “After a year of exposure to radiation and extreme temperature variation cycles on the Bartolomeo platform, the CZT sensors will be returned to Coimbra, where the level of operational degradation will be assessed and their performance compared with the performance of the sensors before sending them into space,” explains the physicist.
From this analysis, the team will then be able to validate or not these sensors for integration into future space telescopes for high-energy astrophysics, as well as understand how it will be possible to optimize them. “This work contributes to the development of instrumentation for high-energy astrophysics and consequently the sensitivity of observation, which may have significant impacts on the understanding of the physics of the newly discovered gravitational waves, which are measured in ground facilities simultaneously with strong gamma-ray bursts that are measured in space by space telescopes.”
The GLOSS experiment was funded by the ESA’s PRODEX program and the Portuguese Space Agency, having been selected under the Euro Material Ageing competition promoted by the ESA. In addition to FCTUC, this experiment involves teams from the Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory of Bologna, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF/OAS-Bologna), and the Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism of the National Research Council of Parma (CNR/IMEM-Parma, Italy).
Watch the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 here.
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