TRL6 testing of a curved borosilicate glass microchannel plate far-UV detector assembly for spaceflight

Michael W. Davis; Oswald H. W. Siegmund; G. Randall Gladstone; Adrian Martin; Kurt D. Retherford; John V. Vallerga

doi:10.1117/12.2594177

24 August 2021 TRL6 testing of a curved borosilicate glass microchannel plate far-UV detector assembly for spaceflight

Michael W. Davis, Oswald H. W. Siegmund, G. Randall Gladstone, Adrian Martin, Kurt D. Retherford, John V. Vallerga

Proceedings Volume 11821, UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XXII; 118210A (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2594177
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2021, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Europa Clipper Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS) is the sixth in the line of Alice/UVS spectrographs from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The heart of the instrument is a far-UV sensitive microchannel plate detector system. This detector consists of a z-stack of three borosilicate glass microchannel plates, with resistive and secondary emissive layers deposited via an atomic-layer deposition (ALD) process. The resulting detector has orders of magnitude longer lifetime given comparable fluences than previously flown MCP detectors, as well as reduced sensitivity to gamma-ray induced background noise. This detector is also the first instance of a curved borosilicate glass microchannel plate z-stack undergoing thermal vacuum testing in a flight-like environment, raising the TRL of the system to 6. The flight model detector was bench tested at Sensor Sciences and delivered to the Europa-UVS project in July 2020. Further bench tests were undertaken at SwRI after delivery, followed by thermal vacuum testing in December 2020. The results of these tests are presented herein.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Michael W. Davis, Oswald H. W. Siegmund, G. Randall Gladstone, Adrian Martin, Kurt D. Retherford, and John V. Vallerga "TRL6 testing of a curved borosilicate glass microchannel plate far-UV detector assembly for spaceflight", Proc. SPIE 11821, UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XXII, 118210A (24 August 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2594177

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