Caption: This photo shows a prototype of the Athena/X-IFU focal plane array that was designed and fabricated at NASA-Goddard. This is considered a “brassboard” detector array, which NASA considers to be necessary to develop to reach a technical readiness level (TRL) of TRL-5.

Creation date: 01/06/2022. Version #: 1.

Credits: Detector and corner-turning flex were fabricated at NASA – Goddard Space Flight Center Detector Development Laboratory. SQUID multiplexer chips on the side-panels were fabricated at NIST-Boulder. The test set-up shown was designed and integrated jointly by GSFC and NIST-Boulder. The photo was taken by Kazuhiro Sakai (GSFC).