The team arrived at Esrange (just outside Kiruna, Sweden) to prepare to launch XL-Calibur on Friday May 6th, and our first few days have been very productive! On Friday we fully assembled the truss, installed the polarimeter, and completed initial testing of our flight systems and the detector itself. We are very pleased to announce […]
The experiment is fully assembled, 5 days after out arrival at the Wallops Flight Facility! The photo shows from left to right the science team members Richard Bose, Lindsey Lisalda, Taisei Mineta (in front), Henric Krawczynski, Ephraim Gau (in front), Yuusuke Uchida, Garry Simburger, Andrew West, Hiromitsu Takahashi, and Yoshitomo Maeda. The next week will […]
Today, we installed the polarimeter in the telescope. The first two images show the “can” that houses the scattering element and the front-end readout electronics. The X-rays will come from the mirror through the hole visible in the first photo. The other photos show how the installation of the polarimeter proceeded. We are grateful to […]
XL-Calibur will take joint observations with the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer. IXPE’s launch is scheduled for 1am on Dec. 9, 2021. The first-year observation plank has been announced here.
XL-Calibur’s detector spins around the optical axis to make up for minor detector uniformities and to detect tiny polarization fractions in the X-ray signals from cosmic sources. The image here shows the electric motor used for spinning the detector.
XL-Calibur graduate student Lindsey Lisalda won the 2021 Faculty Award of the Association of Women Faculty. More details can be found here.
We traveled from St. Louis to the Wallops Flight Facility on Oct. 31, 2021 to integrate the X- ray polarimeter and shield into the telescope and gondola. The integration will take three weeks. The first week focuses in mounting the detector and shield and testing their functionality. The second week will focus on the computer […]
The XL-Calibur team traveled to the Colombia Scientific Ballooning Facility in Palestine, Texas in September, 2021 to test the detector at low pressures and at the extreme temperatures that the team will encounter during its ascent, its stratospheric flight, and its descent.
For our recent appearance in WashU news, click the link below! https://artsci.wustl.edu/ampersand/xl-calibur-telescope-examine-most-extreme-objects-universe-black-holes-and-neutron-stars