Martin C. Weisskopf AAS 2011 May 23 The Chandra X-ray Observatory: Current Status and Future Prospects Martin C. Weisskopf AAS 2011 May 23

Involved more than 1350 students and postdocs Chandra involves and interests the community 2979 distinct PIs and CoIs in cycles 1-11 ~200 new PIs and Co-Is per year Involved more than 1350 students and postdocs Averaging over ~500 papers per year Consistantly oversubscribed (>5) Independent Large Telescope Citation Study (Trimble & Ceja 2008) 2001-2003 (pre-Spitzer) Citations: over 3 years following publication

Chandra continues to give us new insights Tennant et al. 2011

Working with other obervatories: Chandra & Fermi-LAT

The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare! The images to the left (2010 Sep, ObsID13139), and the right (2010 Oct, ObsID13146) were recently taken using ACIS-S3 in the proposed mode. The central figure is the time-corrected difference between these two images where red indicates the flux has faded and blue that it has brightened.  

The hunt for the site of the gamma-ray flare!

Spacecraft is in excellent health – almost in the 13th year Observatory status Spacecraft is in excellent health – almost in the 13th year Designed for 3 years with a goal of 5 All redundant systems are available except one pair of gyro rotors that has been swapped to a backup. One of the switched gyro rotors is fully healthy and the second has reserve life. Chandra can operate with one rotor from each set Thermal insulation has slowly degraded Requires increased pitch restrictions and limits on constrained observations Mission planning has managed impacts Independent Large Telescope Citation Study (Trimble & Ceja 2008) 2001-2003 (pre-Spitzer) Citations: over 3 years following publication

Molecular contamination continues to build up on the ACIS filters Observatory status – continued Molecular contamination continues to build up on the ACIS filters Independent Large Telescope Citation Study (Trimble & Ceja 2008) 2001-2003 (pre-Spitzer) Citations: over 3 years following publication

There will (no doubt) be new challenges as Chandra ages Observatory status There will (no doubt) be new challenges as Chandra ages However, overall observatory performance remains superb No known limitations to > 20-yr mission

Example future projects Science Goal Observations Measure the expansion history of the universe for 0.5<z<1 X-ray images & spectra for massive clusters Search for evidence of decaying dark matter particles X-ray images and spectra of galaxy clusters to test the evolution of fgas to z~1.2 Measure WHIM features to constrain the baryon overdensity High-resolution spectra of quiescent blazars. Determine how AGN feedback operates in galaxies and clusters of galaxies Deep images galaxies and clusters and high-resolution spectra of bright AGN Measure the luminosity and evolution functions AGN Extend the CDFS survey inosities and higher z. Trace evolution of temperature, density, pressure and velocity of shocked material in young SNR Deep images and spectra of starburst galaxies to trace the metals and hot gas Measure mass and radius for bursting NS Grating spectra of X-ray binaries in outburst Extend mass and radius measurements for a number of neutron stars High-resolution spectroscopy to determine distances together with burst data from other satellites

The opportunity for exploration and discovery with Chandra remains as high today as it was at launch