SWAP will provide images of the solar corona at a temperature of roughly 1 million degrees, with a cadence of 1 image per minute, and field of view (FOV) of 54 arcmin.
Several major innovations have been introduced in the design of the instrument in order to be compliant with the requirements of the PROBA2 micro-satellite: compactness, with a new off-axis optical design, radiation resistance with a new CMOS-APS detector, a very low power electronics, an athermal opto-mechanical system, optimized onboard compression schemes combined with prioritization of collected data, autonomy with automatic triggering of observation and off-pointing procedures in case of solar event occurrence.
All these new features result from the low resource requirements (power, mass, telemetry) of the mini-satellite, but also take advantage of the specificities of a modern technological platform, such as quick pointing agility, new powerful on-board processor, Packetwire interface, and autonomous operations.
- SWAP Schematic
- This schematic shows the novel off-axis configuration of the SWAP telescope. Once operations begin the door is opened permanently.