10/31/2025
By Lynne Schaufenbil

Please join the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology on Thursday, November 6 at 11 a.m. for a talk by Sarah Heine

REDSoX: Mission design and development for a sounding rocket-borne soft X-ray polarimeter

REDSoX (the Rocket Experiment Demonstration of a Soft X-ray Polarimeter) is a NASA-funded sounding rocket payload designed to measure polarization of X-rays in the 200-400 eV band. This telescope utilizes both unique optical components like Critical Angle Transmission (CAT) gratings and Laterally Graded Multilayer Mirrors (LGMLs) together with more traditional X-ray optical components like grazing angle focusing mirrors and charge coupled devices (CCDs) to create a spectropolarimeter in the 200-400 eV band. The data from this telescope (due to launch in the summer of 2027) will complement higher energy polarization measurements provided by missions like IXPE and XLCalibur. I will discuss the design of the instrument, our progress in the first three years of the project, and the path towards launch, as well as the development of an orbital version of the payload: the Globe Orbiting Soft X-ray Polarimeter (GOSoX).

Bio:
Sarah Heine is a research scientist at the MIT Kavli Institute and a NASA Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellow. She received her bachelor of science in physics from MIT in 2008 and doctorate in physics from MIT in 2014 working on the Micro-X sounding rocket. She focuses on instrumentation for X-ray astrophysics including technology development missions like sounding rockets in addition to detector development work, particularly on sCMOS detectors. Sarah also manages the X-ray polarimetry beamline at MIT, which is utilized in testing and development for projects involving X-ray optics, other optical elements like gratings and multilayers, and detectors.

If you are interested in attending or for the Zoom link, please contact Lynne_Schaufenbil@uml.edu