Proc. of SPIE Vol. 4013-03 (2000)
H. Watarai, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (Japan);
T. Onaka, M. Ueno, T. Ootsubo, T. Negishi, Univ. of Tokyo (Japan);
H. Matsuhara, H. Murakami, T. Matsumoto, T. Wada, K. Uemizu, S. Fujita, I. Maeda,Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (Japan);
N. Takeyama, Genesia Corp. (Japan) [4013-03]
The design overview and current development status of the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard the Japanese infrared space mission,
ASTRO-F (commonly called as the Infrared Imaging Surveyor; IRIS), are presented.
The IRC is one of the focal plane instruments of ASTRO-F and will make imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy observations
in the wide spectral range of the near- to mid-infrared of m. ASTRO-F will be brought into an IRAS-type sun-synchronous polar orbit.
The IRC will be operated in the pointing mode, in which the telescope will be pointed at a fixed target position on the sky for about 10 minutes.
The pointed observation may be scheduled up to three times per orbit. The IRC has three channels: NIR (m), MIR-S (m) and MIR-L (m).
All of the three channels use refractive optics. Each channel has a field-of-view of with nearly diffraction-limited spatial resolution.
The NIR and MIR-S channels simultaneously observe the same field on the sky, while the MIR-L observes the sky about 20' away from the NIR/MIR-S position.
State-of-the-art large format array detectors manufactured by Raytheon/IRCoE are employed for the IRC. The NIR channel uses a InSb array,
and Si:As IBC arrays are used for the MIR channels. Fabrication of the proto-model has been completed and the preliminary performance test is under way.
Infrared camera, infrared instrumentation, space mission, ASTRO-F
