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Current Status and Future Prospects of the Chandra X-ray Observatory

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has a vibrant community of over 2,979 distinct principal and co-investigators involved. With approximately 200 new investigators joining annually, Chandra supports more than 1,350 students and postdocs while producing around 500 papers each year. Despite being consistently oversubscribed, Chandra continues to provide groundbreaking insights. As it approaches the 13th year of operation, the spacecraft remains in excellent health, though some systems have shown wear. Future projects promise ongoing exploration and discovery opportunities.

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Current Status and Future Prospects of the Chandra X-ray Observatory

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  1. The Chandra X-ray Observatory: Current Status and Future Prospects Martin C. Weisskopf AAS 2011 May 23

  2. Chandra involves and interests the community • 2979 distinct PIs and CoIs in cycles 1-11 • ~200 new PIs and Co-Is per year • Involved more than 1350 students and postdocs • Averaging over ~500 papers per year • Consistantly oversubscribed (>5)

  3. Chandra continues to give us new insights Tennant et al. 2011

  4. Working with other obervatories: Chandra & Fermi-LAT

  5. The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare!

  6. The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare!

  7. Observatory status • Spacecraft is in excellent health – almost in the 13th year • Designed for 3 years with a goal of 5 • All redundant systems are available except one pair of gyro rotors that has been swapped to a backup. • One of the switched gyro rotors is fully healthy and the second has reserve life. Chandra can operate with one rotor from each set • Thermal insulation has slowly degraded • Requires increased pitch restrictions and limits on constrained observations • Mission planning has managed impacts

  8. Observatory status – continued Molecular contamination continues to build up on the ACIS filters

  9. Observatory status • There will (no doubt) be new challenges as Chandra ages • However, overall observatory performance remains • superb • No known limitations to > 20-yr mission

  10. Example future projects

  11. The opportunity for exploration and discovery with Chandra remains as high today as it was at launch

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