The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) solar sounding rocket campaign - Calibration and performance

The Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) is a sounding rocket experiment that is designed to observe, for the first time, soft X-ray spectra of high-temperature, low-emission plasma of coronal structures spatially resolved along a narrow slit. MaGIXS observation involves a set of high temperature spectral lines in soft X-rays from 0.5 - 2.0 keV from an active region core, which will extend the DEM coverage from 3MK to 10MK constraining the slope of the DEM fall-off. The novel instrument design includes a Wolter-I type telescope and a 3-optic grazing-incidence spectrometer. The spectrometer consists of a finite conjugate mirror pair and a blazed planar, varied line spaced grating, which disperses the rays on to a CCD and provides a high spatial and spectral resolution. Component level instrument testing, integration of the instrument and end-to-end X-ray calibration are carried out using the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. MaGIXS is scheduled for launch in 2021. We will present the results of X-ray calibration tests for MaGIXS and discuss the expected inflight performance through different solar observation scenarios.