Characterization, deployment, and in-flight performance of the BLAST-TNG cryogenic receiver

The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter polarimeter designed to map interstellar dust and galactic foregrounds at 250, 350, and 500 microns during a 24-day Antarctic flight. The BLAST-TNG detector arrays are comprised of 918, 469, and 2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy X
Main Authors: Lowe, Ian N., Ade, Peter, Ashton, Peter, Austermann, Jason, Coppi, Gabriele, Cox, Erin G., Devlin, Mark, Dober, Bradley, Fanfani, Valentina, Fissel, Laura, Galitzki, Nicholas, Gao, Jiansong, Gordon, Samuel, Groppi, Christopher, Hilton, Gene, Hubmayr, Johannes, Klein, Jeff, Li, Dale, Lourie, Nathan P., Mani, Hamdi, Mauskopf, Philip, McKenney, Christopher, Nati, Federico, Novak, Giles, Pisano, Giampaolo, Romualdez, Javier, Soler, Juan D., Sinclair, Adrian, Tucker, Carole, Ullom, Joel, Vissers, Michael, Wheeler, Caleb, Williams, Paul
Other Authors: Galitzki, Nichola, Hubmayr, Johanne, Mckenney, Christopher, Novak, Gile
Format: Conference Object
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Millimetre wave astronomy
sub-millimetre astronomy
polarimetry
Antarctic
Antarc*
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11573/1487650
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2560854
Description
Summary:The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter polarimeter designed to map interstellar dust and galactic foregrounds at 250, 350, and 500 microns during a 24-day Antarctic flight. The BLAST-TNG detector arrays are comprised of 918, 469, and 272 MKID pixels, respectively. The pixels are formed from two orthogonally oriented, crossed, linear-polarization sensitive MKID antennae. The arrays are cooled to sub 300 mK temperatures and stabilized via a closed cycle 3He sorption fridge in combination with a 4He vacuum pot. The detectors are read out through a combination of the second-generation Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware (ROACH2) and custom RF electronics designed for BLAST-TNG. The firmware and software designed to readout and characterize these detectors was built from scratch by the BLAST team around these detectors, and has been adapted for use by other MKID instruments such as TolTEC and OLIMPO.1 We present an overview of these systems as well as in-depth methodology of the ground-based characterization and the measured in-flight performance.

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