NASA Selects AXIS for Phase A Study

AXIS received $5 million to conduct a 12-month mission concept study. After a detailed evaluation of the study, NASA expects to select one concept in 2026 to proceed with construction, for a launch in 2032. Read more.

Home

AXIS Instrument Architecture

AXIS Bus
On

AXIS X-Ray Mirror Assembly

The AXIS X-ray Mirror Assembly (XMA) will be a high-resolution, lightweight, silicon-segment-based grazing incidence X-ray optic.

XMA
On
AXIS XMA Zoom-in
On

The heart of the XMA is the Spider with Integrated Mirror Modules configured with multiple rings composed of many segment pairs. The XMA will comprise over 14,000 iridium-coated mirror segments packed into hundreds of Mirror Modules.

High-Speed AXIS X-ray Camera Module

The AXIS X-ray Camera Assembly contains the Detector Array, a 2×2 array of MIT Lincoln Laboratory CCDs coupled with low-power, low-noise ASIC amplifiers developed by Stanford. Each CCD consists of 1440×1440 24mm pixels.

Camera