XL-CALIBURXL-Calibur is a collaboration amongst scientists from the United States, Japan, and Sweden, led by the Principal Investigator, Henric Krawczynski from Washington University (St. Louis). The mirror uses a flight spare from the Hitomi mission, a gondola and pointing control mechanism developed at NASA’s Wallops Space Flight Center, and a fully active shield developed at KTH in Sweden. The mission is flown on Long Duration Balloon (LDB) flights launched from McMurdo (Antarctic) or Jukkasjärvi (Sweden) as part of NASA’s Scientific Ballooning program. The main objectives of XL-Calibur are to measure polarization at hard X-ray wavelengths for a selection of bright sources. These measurements address the following science goals:
XL-Calibur is mounted on a gondola carried by an extreme altitude balloon into the stratosphere at roughly 40 km (130,000 feet) float altitude. At this altitude, the Earth’s atmosphere is transparent to X-rays above 15 keV. Special coatings on the X-ray mirror allow XL-Calibur to focus X-rays in the 15 keV to 80 keV energy range. Currently two flights are planned: one from Kiruna (Sweden) scrutinizing Northern Hemisphere sources, and one from the McMurdo Station (Antarctica) circling the Antarctic observing sources in the Souther Hemisphere. The flight from Sweden to Canada will allow for 6-7 days of observations. The flight circling the Antarctic continent will allow for 8-55 days of observations. The XL-Calibur observations will be coordinated with complimentary observations with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer Mission (NICER), and with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission. The XL-Calibur data will be delivered and hosted by the HEASARC. Latest NewsJul 2024The XL-Calibur balloon from NASA was successfully launched at 05:04 local time on the 9th of July from Esrange Space Center (Sweden). The flight is expected to last 4-5 days and it is possible to follow its journey across the Atlantic before landing in northern Canada.
Oct 2023New XL-Calibur launch windowThe new XL-Calibur launch window from Kiruna, Sweden, is set from May 7 to July 15 2024.
Oct 2022Update on the XL-Calibur Jul 2022 flightthe 6-day long flight had to contend with an accidental drop of the entire flight ballast at one side of the gondola, leading to 3.5 days of recovery operations without science observations. Furthermore, a mirror alignment error prevented the observations of the X-ray targets in the remaining time.
12 Jul 2022Successful XL-CALIBUR launchXL-CALIBUR was launched in the early morning hours of 12 July 2022 (local time) from Esrange under excellent launch conditions. The balloon carried the payload to 130,000 feet altitude until the mission was terminated over northern Canada on July 18, 2022.
30 Jun 2022XL-CALIBUR launch attempt #2XL-CALIBUR planned launch early 1 July 2022 scrubbed due to wind conditions. Next planned launch attempt 2 July 2022 (early morning local time)
24 Jun 2022XL-CALIBUR launch scrubbedThe payload was rigged for flight, but weather conditions prevented the planned launch.
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HEASARC Staff Scientist Position - Applications are now being accepted for a Staff Scientist with significant experience and interest in the technical aspects of astrophysics research, to work in the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD. Refer to the AAS Job register for full details.
- HEASARC Director: Dr. Andy Ptak
- NASA Official: Dr. Andy Ptak
- Web Curator: J.D. Myers
- Last Modified: 8-Nov-2023