The Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment (OGRE) is a collaborative technology demonstration project to launch two sounding rocket flights that will demonstrate new technologies in the advancement of soft X-ray astronomy. This thesis discusses the commissioning work conducted on the focal plane camera for OGRE, which employs electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices (EMCCDs) that are yet to be used for space-based X-ray astronomy. The first four chapters present the necessary context, background, and theory for understanding the topics discussed throughout the thesis and the performance required of both the broader OGRE instrument, and the focal plane camera specifically. A modification to the standard layer model for quantum efficiency is derived to investigate the impact of partial charge collection close to the surface of passivated CCDs, particularly in the soft X-ray regime, and a moderate improvement in accuracy is demonstrated. A comprehensive commissioning campaign of the flight camera was conducted to characterise the system and its detectors and optimise its operation. The thermal control system was optimised to ensure the temperature stability of the detectors throughout the flight, and X-ray sources were used to probe the gain and noise performance of the detectors and measure the energy resolution of the camera. The effect of parallel binning on the spectral resolution of the OGRE instrument was studied and identified the optimal binning factor to balance resolution and readout speed. The chapter concludes with a successful test of the central detector in imaging optical light and validating a centroiding algorithm for locating the observing target in the ground software component. An integrated test of a prototype grating and mirror segments with a representative EMCCD was conducted at the PANTER beamline facility, and the data was analysed extensively to confirm the ability of the OGRE instrument to meet its required resolution.
Daniel Anthony Russell Evan (Thu,) studied this question.