CubeSat Instrument for Gamma Ray Detection

CubeSat Instrument for Gamma Ray Detection Kaheem Walters, University of the Virgin Islands Co-Author(s): Georgia de Nolfo This project was to build an instrument for gamma ray detection to be equipped on the University of the Virgin Islands' Gamma Ray Experiment for Astrophysical Transients (UVI-GREAT). The objective is to detect gamma ray bursts that correspond to collapsing neutron stars and black holes. Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are energetic electromagnetic events produced by merging neutron stars and black holes. There are two types of GRBs: short-duration gamma ray bursts (sGRBs) that last less than 2 seconds and long-duration gamma ray bursts (lGRBs) that range from 2 second to a few hundred seconds. For BurstCube's and UVI-GREAT's mission, the interest will be in sGRBs, which are believed to be related to gravitational waves (GWs). GWs provide scientist with a new to observe the universe aside from electromagnetic radiation. UVI-GREAT would complement BurstCube and Fermi in the detection of GRBs enabling near complete sky coverage by providing 2 pi FOV. To detect the gamma burst from extragalactic sources, the instrument will be built using cesium iodide scintillators, silicon photo-multipliers and a DRS4 evaluation board on a 3U CubeSat. The radiation sources used in the instrument testing include Americium-241, Cobalt-60, Cesium-137, and Bismuth-207. My role in this project was testing the instrument using these radioactive sources with a setup including a light-tight box and an oscilloscope. To complete this task, data was collected from the silicon photo-multipliers onto a flash drive connected to the oscilloscope. The data was then analyzed using a python program code created to read and manipulate csv and binary files specifically from the oscilloscope in the lab. The device is functional and produces results within range of NASA GSFC results, with the exception of low energy sources not being measurable by this device. UVI-GREAT will hopefully be launched in 2022-2023. Funding acknowledgement: NASA MUREP-MIRO award NNX15AP95A and NASA EPSCoR award NNX16AL44A Faculty Advisor/Mentor: Dr. Georgia de Nolfo