2019.P.1.2. CUTE data simulator and reduction pipeline

Author(s)

Sreejith Aickara Gopinathan (1)
Luca Fossati (1)
Brian Fleming (2)
Kevin France (2)
Tommi Koskinen (3)
Hannah Rüdisser (1)
Arika Egan (2)
Manfred Steller (1)

Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, U.S.A.
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, U.S.A.

Session

P.1

Keywords

Device simulation, Calibration, Space operations, Stars, Ultraviolet, Charge-coupled devices, Exoplanets

Abstract

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a 6U NASA CubeSat carrying a low-resolution (R ~3000), near-ultraviolet (250 – 330 nm) spectrograph. CUTE, which is planned for launch in Spring 2020, is designed to monitor transiting extra-solar planets orbiting bright, nearby stars aiming at improving our understanding of planet atmospheric escape and star-planet interaction processes. We present here the CUTE data simulator, which is a versatile tool easily adaptable to any other mission performing single-slit spectroscopy and carrying on-board an array detector. We further briefly discuss our plans for the development of a CUTE data reduction pipeline. The data simulator will be used to inform the target selection, improve the preliminary signal-to-noise calculator, test the impact on the data of deviations from the nominal instrument characteristics, identify the best spacecraft orientation for the observation of each target and construct synthetic data to train the science team in the data analysis prior to launch