This paper uses an budgeting approach to examine the proposed X-ray Surveyor’s imaging quality. The paper presents a budget which is the same structure as that of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The budget is populated with terms that can be expected to be the same as that of Chandra, namely the contributions due to aspect solution and alignment between the mirrors and focal plane detectors. An allocation for dynamic induced image degradation is then introduced, to allow for contribution due to the optics from all sources to be determined, ~0.44 arcseconds. This value is compared with the current state of the art, which is considerably in excess of 0.5 arcesconds. The role and possibility of adjustable optics for the X-ray Surveyor is discussed.

Date Published: 17 August 2016
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9905, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 990555 (17 August 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2234495

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9905:
Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray
Jan-Willem A. den Herder; Tadayuki Takahashi; Marshall Bautz, Editor(s)