Made-In-Germany X-ray technologies for space exploration
02/19/2025The Chair of Aerospace Information Technology is developing new X-ray technologies for pulsar navigation and asteroid exploration in the SENTRY project in collaboration with X-Spectrum. This will allow us to analyse the composition of the asteroid Aphosis during its close flyby in 2029.
SENTRY proposes to bring towards space applications the latest terrestrial synchrotron “Made-In-Germany” X-ray sensor technologies, providing as a final product a multispectral imager/camera solution that can outperform existing CCDs/DEPFET space sensors in key aspects. Compared to current X- ray sensing devices, SENTRY's camera concept will be radiation-hardened, power-optimized and in addition will require no cooling. Besides, SENTRY's imager will become the first event-based X-ray camera enabled for space, representing a groundbreaking shift from traditional frame-based imagers which have long been the standard in all space missions, such as CCDs in asteroid (or astrophysical) missions or DEPFET technologies employed in BePiColombo.
The overall aim of the SENTRY project is to develop a multispectral X-ray imager using LGAD/Photon counting in the 0.5-20 KeV, of high spectral, time and position resolutions. This innovative camera will support flexible reconfiguration of these payload's operational sensitivities to meet mission needs (e.g. astrophysics, navigation, etc. or a reduced telemetry) or environmental conditions, and serving as a proof of concept will be optimized for detecting X-ray fluorescence from Apophis in 2029
Partners: University Würzburg (Space Exploration) and X-Spectrum (X-Ray Technolgies)
