INFOCµS (International Focusing Optics Collaboration for µCrab Sensitivity)

INFOCµS is a balloon-borne instrument incorporating recent breakthroughs in focusing optics and detectors to achieve order of magnitude improvements in both hard X-ray sensitivity and imaging resolution, with high resolution spectroscopy. This instrument is a pioneering effort to extend into the hard X-ray energy range the power of focusing optics that has revolutionized X-ray astronomy with missions like ROSAT and ASCA.

The telescope is conical approximation of Wolter-I optics with 8m focal length and 40cm diameter. It employed 255 nested ultra-thin reflector pairs, or supermirrors that reflected hard X-rays by Bragg reflection at incidence angles larger than the critical angle of total external reflection.

Balloon launched on: 8/29/2000 at 00:29 utc
Launch site: Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, Palestine, Texas, US  
Balloon launched by: National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF)
Balloon manufacturer/size/composition: Zero Pressure Balloon 300.000 m3 - SF3-11.82-.8/.8-NHR
Balloon serial number: W11.82-1E-27
Flight identification number: 1574P
End of flight (L for landing time, W for last contact, otherwise termination time): 8/30/2000 at 7:23 utc
Balloon flight duration (F: time at float only, otherwise total flight time in d:days / h:hours or m:minutes - ): F 4 h
Landing site: 20 miles SW of Menara, Texas, US

• InFOCµS website NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Elemental Abundances via X-ray Observations of Galaxy Clusters and the InFOCuS Hard X-ray Telescope Ph.D. Thesis by Baumgartner, Wayne, University of Maryland, 2004
• Measurements of Load Train Motion on a Stratospheric Balloon Flight Goddard Space Flight Center