The Prime Focal Plane Assembly consists of three major subassemblies; the Prime Focal Plane Array and the two preamplifier stacks. The Prime Focal Plane Array is located at the focal plane (surface) of the telescope. Its characteristics are listed in Table 3.4. The Prime Focal Plane Array is a monolithic silicon focal plane made up of five detector arrays: Band 1 through Band 4 and the Pan Band. The arrays for Bands 1 through 4 contain 16 detectors divided into odd-even rows. The array for the Pan Band contains 32 detectors also divided into odd-even rows. The system focus is optimized for the Pan Band which has the highest spatial resolution. The preamplifiers are mounted on the Prime Focal Plane Assembly, and consist of two stacks of flat hybrid modules. On top of each stack is a cylindrical black radiative cooling tower to help dissipate the heat from the preamplifiers.

Table 3.4 Prime Focal Plane Assembly Design Parameters
Parameter	Bands 1 through 4	Pan Band
Number of detectors	16 per band	32
Detector Size	0.00408 in x 0.00408 in	0.00204 in x 0.00177 in
Detector Area
IFOV size	42.5 µrad	21.25 µrad x 18.5 µrad
Center to center spacing along track	0.00408 in	0.00204 in
Center to center spacing between rows	0.01020 in	0.00816 in

Back to Chapter 3

Last Update: February 21, 2002