BlackCAT

BlackCAT is a NASA 6-U CubeSat mission developed by Penn State (Principal Investigator, Prof. Abe Falcone). Using a wide-field telescope, BlackCAT will monitor the soft X-ray sky in the energy range of 0.5 keV to 20 keV, searching for high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), gravitational-wave counterparts, and other transient events. BlackCAT will provide arcminute-scale localization for Gamma Ray Bursts, gravitational-wave counterparts, high energy transient events and monitor galactic and extragalactic variable sources. After detecting burst events, BlackCAT will be capable of transmitting rapid alerts to enable prompt follow-up observations.

BlackCAT is composed of a coded-aperture telescope using an array of event-driven X-ray hybrid CMOS detectors (HCDs) in its focal plane. The CMOS detectors are arranged into a 2 x 2 configuration. The field of view is 40deg x70deg (0.85 sr partially coded) and the cubesat has two-star trackers to provide sub-arcminutes positions. The point spread function full width half maximum is of 7 arcmin and a source localization with a 90% error of 1 arcmin. The observation strategy is to monitor the sky with 10 min snap-shots stable pointing on a specific sky position. Each snap-shot is followed by a slew to provide some overlap in sky pointings.

The mission will operate for a nominal 1-year science operation after a 60-days of on-orbit check-out and commissioning phase. Launch is planned for early 2026.