The Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment (OGRE): high-performance x-ray spectroscopy

The Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment (OGRE) is a NASA suborbital rocket mission for high-performance X-ray spectroscopy. The nominal payload utilizes lightweight, polished-Si optics fabricated by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, a reflection grating array fabricated at Penn State with key industrial collaborations, and an EM-CCD based camera fabricated by XCAM in collaboration with the Open University. In preparation for the nominal mission, we will fly a pathfinder rocket that swaps the polished-Si telescope out for the JET-X telescope. This is one of three telescopes originally made for Spectrum-x-gamma with one currently flying on Swift and one slated for Pathfinder-OGRE, being lent by the Italian Space Agency. Here we report on the progress of the OGRE program, overview of the Pathfinder-OGRE mission, and updates on the nominal payload.