The HERMES Technologic and Scientific Pathfinder will include a siswich detector, which is capable of performing spectroscopy in the range from 2 keV to 2 MeV as a single monolithic detector. To do this, the siswich combines a solid-state Silicon Drift Detector and a scintillator crystal. However, a spectroscopic calibration pipeline has not been standardized yet for these instruments. In this work, we present the newly developed HERMES calibration pipeline, mescal, which is intended for laboratory on-ground raw HERMES data energy calibration and formatting. This software is designed to minimize user interaction, thus including an automatic calibration line identification, and an automatic linear, independent calibration for each pixel in both operating modes. The mescal pipeline can set the basis for similar applications in future siswich telescopes.
The Space Industry Responsive Intelligent Thermal (SpIRIT) 6U CubeSat nano-satellite is an Australian mission with Italian partecipation for high-energy astrophysics. The 6U CubeSat carries an actively cooled detector system payload in a Sun-synchronous orbit. This payload unit is identical to the six that will fly onboard the High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites (HERMES) Technologic and Scientific Pathfinder ASI mission, hosting compact and innovative X-ray and gamma-ray detector for high energy transients localization (e.g., GRBs). SpIRIT was successfully launched on December 1, 2023 with a SpaceX Falcon 9, and the payload commissioning is in progress and about to be completed. This paper will provide an overview of the SpIRIT scientific payload early orbital operations, with the commissioning and in-flight calibrations of the instrument.
HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) Pathfinder mission aims to observe and localize Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) and other transients using a constellation of nanosatellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO). Scheduled for launch in early 2025, the 3U CubeSats will host miniaturized instruments featuring a hybrid Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) and GAGG:Ce scintillator photodetector system, sensitive to X-rays and gamma-rays across a wide energy range. Each HERMES payload contains 120 SDD cells, each with a sensitive area of 45 mm2, organized into 12 matrices, reading out 60 12.1×6.94×15.0 mm3 GAGG:Ce scintillators. Photons interacting with an SDD are identified as X-ray events (2–60 keV), while photons in the 20–2000 keV range absorbed by the crystals produce scintillation light, which is read by two SDDs, allowing event discrimination. The detector system, including front-end and back-end electronics, a power supply unit, a chip-scale atomic clock, and a payload data handling unit, fits within a 10×10×10 cm3 volume, weighs 1.5 kg, and has a maximum power consumption of ∼2 W. This paper outlines the development of the HERMES constellation, the design and selection of the payload detectors, and laboratory testing, presenting the results of detector calibrations and environmental tests to provide a comprehensive status update of the mission.
HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) Pathfinder is a space-borne mission based on a constellation of six nano-satellites flying in a low-Earth orbit (LEO). The 3U CubeSats, to be launched in early 2025, host miniaturized instruments with a hybrid Silicon Drift Detector/GAGG:Ce scintillator photodetector system, sensitive to X-rays and gamma-rays in a large energy band. HERMES will operate in conjunction with Australian Space Industry Responsive Intelligent Thermal (SpIRIT) 6U CubeSat, launched in December 2023. HERMES will probe the temporal emission of bright high-energy transients such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), ensuring a fast transient localization in a field of view of several steradians exploiting the triangulation technique. HERMES intrinsically modular transient monitoring experiment represents a keystone capability to complement the next generation of gravitational wave experiments. In this paper we outline the scientific case, development and programmatic status of the mission.
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