The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Gondola, Attitude Control, and Control Software

dc.contributor.authorAboobaker, Asad
dc.contributor.authorAde, Peter
dc.contributor.authorAraujo, Derek
dc.contributor.authorAubin, François
dc.contributor.authorHelson, Kyle
dc.contributor.authorThe EBEX Collaboration
dc.contributor.authoret al
dc.date.accessioned2022-02-08T15:43:50Z
dc.date.available2022-02-08T15:43:50Z
dc.date.issued2018-11-06
dc.descriptionAuthors: Asad Aboobaker , Peter Ade , Derek Araujo , François Aubin , Carlo Baccigalupi, , Chaoyun Bao , Daniel Chapman , Joy Didier , Matt Dobbs, , Will Grainger , Shaul Hanany , Kyle Helson , Seth Hillbrand , Johannes Hubmayr, Andrew Jaffe , Bradley Johnson , Terry Jones , Jeff Klein , Andrei Korotkov, Adrian Lee, Lorne Levinson , Michele Limon , Kevin MacDermid , Amber D. Miller , Michael Milligan , Lorenzo Moncelsi, , Enzo Pascale , Kate Raach , Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud , Ilan Sagiv , Carole Tucker , Gregory S. Tucker , Benjamin Westbrook, Karl Young , and Kyle Zilicen_US
dc.description.abstractThe E and B Experiment (EBEX) was a long-duration balloon-borne instrument designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. EBEX was the first balloon-borne instrument to implement a kilopixel array of transition edge sensor (TES) bolometric detectors and the first CMB experiment to use the digital version of the frequency domain multiplexing system for readout of the TES array. The scan strategy relied on 40 s peak-to-peak constant-velocity azimuthal scans. We discuss the unique demands on the design and operation of the payload that resulted from these new technologies and the scan strategy. We describe the solutions implemented, including the development of a power system designed to provide a total of at least 2.3 kW, a cooling system to dissipate 590 W consumed by the detectors’ readout system, software to manage and handle the data of the kilopixel array, and specialized attitude reconstruction software. We present flight performance data showing faultless management of the TES array, adequate powering and cooling of the readout electronics, and constraint of attitude reconstruction errors such that the spurious B-modes they induced were less than 10% of the CMB B-mode power spectrum with r = 0.05.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipSupport for the development and flight of the EBEX instrument was provided by NASA grants NNX12AD50G, NNX13AE49G, NNX08AG40G, and NNG05GE62G and by NSF grants AST0705134 and ANT-0944513. P.A., L.M., E.P., and C.T. acknowledge the Science & Technology Facilities Council for its continued support of the underpinning technology for filter and wave plate development. We also acknowledge support by the Canada Space Agency, the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the Minnesota and Rhode Island Space Grant Consortia, our collaborating institutions, and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. C.B. acknowledges support by the RADIOFOREGROUNDS project, funded by the European Commissions H2020 Research Infrastructures under grant agreement no. 687312, as well as the Italian INFN INDARK initiative. J.D. acknowledges a NASA NESSF fellowship NNX11AL15H. K.H. acknowledges NASA NSTRF fellowship NNX11AN35H. B.R.-K. acknowledges an NSF Post-Doctoral Fellowship AST-1102774 and a NASA Graduate Student Research Fellowship. K.R. and K.Z. acknowledge support by the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium. We very much thank Danny Ball and his colleagues at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility for their dedicated support of the EBEX program. We thankfully acknowledge contributions to predicting systematic errors by Matias Zaldarriaga and Amit Yadav. We thank the BLAST team for providing the original version of the flight computer program discussed in Section 4. We thank Christopher Geach, Qi Wen, and Xin Zhi Tan for help with figures.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/aae435/metaen_US
dc.format.extent19 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2v5kv-qkhn
dc.identifier.citationAboobaker, Asad M. et al. The EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Gondola, Attitude Control, and Control Software. The Astrophysical Journal Supplemenr Series 239 (Nov. 6, 2018) 1. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aae435/en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aae435
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/24145
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherIOPen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Center for Space Sciences and Technology
dc.rightsThis work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.en_US
dc.rightsPublic Domain Mark 1.0*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/*
dc.titleThe EBEX Balloon-borne Experiment—Gondola, Attitude Control, and Control Softwareen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dcterms.creatorhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9238-4918en_US

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