TY - GEN
T1 - On-orbit management of contaminants within the Hubble Space Telescope widefield planetary camera and their effect on instrument performance
AU - MacKenty, John W.
AU - Schneider, Glenn
AU - Baggett, Sylvia M.
AU - Mitchell, Dana D.
AU - Ritchie, Christine E.
AU - Sparks, William B.
PY - 1993
Y1 - 1993
N2 - The Wide Field Planetary Camera (WF/PC) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope contains contaminants which condense on the windows in front of each CCD detector. These contaminants are UV opaque and increase with time to the extent that after several months they block 50% of the flux at 300 nm. Also, when the contaminants are warmed above -40°C and then returned to the normal CCD operating temperature of -87°C, particles form and severely degrade the image quality. The windows may be temporarily cleaned by raising their temperature to 0°C. However, this results in a change in the structure of the flat field due to the partial removal of the UV flood which was applied after launch to suppress Quantum Efficiency Hysteresis in the CCDs. Repeated decontaminations will reintroduce the QEH and necessitate another time consuming UV flood and recalibration of the instrument. After 22 months of on-orbit operation, the contaminants could no longer be fully removed by the decontamination procedure. This paper describes the current state of the contaminants, what has been deduced concerning their properties and sources, the results of our efforts to remove them, and some lessons for future space-based instruments using cryogenic UV sensitive detectors.
AB - The Wide Field Planetary Camera (WF/PC) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope contains contaminants which condense on the windows in front of each CCD detector. These contaminants are UV opaque and increase with time to the extent that after several months they block 50% of the flux at 300 nm. Also, when the contaminants are warmed above -40°C and then returned to the normal CCD operating temperature of -87°C, particles form and severely degrade the image quality. The windows may be temporarily cleaned by raising their temperature to 0°C. However, this results in a change in the structure of the flat field due to the partial removal of the UV flood which was applied after launch to suppress Quantum Efficiency Hysteresis in the CCDs. Repeated decontaminations will reintroduce the QEH and necessitate another time consuming UV flood and recalibration of the instrument. After 22 months of on-orbit operation, the contaminants could no longer be fully removed by the decontamination procedure. This paper describes the current state of the contaminants, what has been deduced concerning their properties and sources, the results of our efforts to remove them, and some lessons for future space-based instruments using cryogenic UV sensitive detectors.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0027850706&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0027850706&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:0027850706
SN - 0819411817
T3 - Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
SP - 340
EP - 345
BT - Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
A2 - Bely, Pierre Y.
A2 - Breckinridge, James B.
PB - Publ by Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
T2 - Space Astronomical Telescopes and Instruments II
Y2 - 13 April 1993 through 14 April 1993
ER -