The HERMES calibration pipeline: mescal

The HERMES Technologic and Scientific Pathfinder project is a constellation of six CubeSats aiming to observe transient high-energy events such as the Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). HERMES will be the first space telescope to include a “siswich” detector, able to perform spectroscopy in the 2 keV to 2 MeV energy band. The particular siswich architecture, which combines a solid-state Silicon Drift Detector and a scintillator crystal, requires specific calibration procedures that have not been standardised. We present in this paper the HERMES calibration pipeline, mescal, intended for raw HERMES data energy calibration and formatting. The software is designed to deal with the particularities of the siswich architecture and to minimise user interaction, including also an automated calibration line identification procedure, and an independent calibration of each detector pixel, in its two different operating modes. The mescal pipeline can set the basis for similar applications in future siswich telescopes.