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Next: In-Orbit Performance Up: 1.2 Payload Description Previous: Command and Data Handling

Attitude Measurement and Control System (AMCS)

 

Primarily [Aschenbach et al.1985], [ROSAT AO-21991, NRA 91-OSSA-31991]

The ROSAT attitude measurement and control system (AMCS)     achieves 3-axes stabilized pointing using up to 3 gyros (out of 4 gyros, denoted as X-, Y-, and Z-gyros, plus the cross-coupled S-gyro)   and three reaction wheels (RW-1, RW-2, and RW-3) in connection with the sun sensor and the magnetometer.   The high torque of the momentum wheels allows fast slews ( tex2html_wrap_inline16369 in tex2html_wrap_inline16371 15 minutes) such that ROSAT can observe two targets on opposite hemispheres each orbit. (It is uneconomical to observe more than two targets per orbit due to slewing overheads.) The AMCS pointing is accurate to tex2html_wrap_inline16373 , the pointing stability is tex2html_wrap_inline16375 with a tex2html_wrap_inline16377 jitter radius. The XRT boresight calibration is discussed in Sect. 2.2.

PSPC pointed observations are usually carried out in a special wobble mode (see Sect. 1.3.3)    whereby the telescope's pointing direction is slowly moved back and forth by tex2html_wrap_inline16379 with a period of 400s. The direction is diagonal to the coarse wire mesh of the PSPC window support structure and is designed to prevent unwanted shadowing of X-ray sources behind this mesh. The on-axis point-response function of the XRT is comparable to the wire diameter of the coarse mesh. HRI observations were also wobbled in order to smooth out quantum-efficiency variations in the microchannel-plate detector. 



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