| Stéphane Schanne, Bertrand Cordier, Maurice Gros, Michel Mur, Sylvain Crespin,
Serge Joly, Jürgen Knödlseder, Pierre Mandrou, Philippe Paul, Jean-Pierre Roques, Gilbert
Vedrenne, Yves André, Marie-Anne Clair, Pascale Clauss, Robert Georgii, Giselher Lichti,
Andreas von Kienlin, Pierre Dubath |
The spectrometer SPI aboard the ESA INTEGRAL satellite, which will be launched in 2002, will study the gamma ray sky in the 20 keV to 8 MeV energy band. It achieves the excellent spectral resolution of about 2 keV for photons of 1 MeV thanks to its 19 germanium detectors. A coded mask imaging technique provides an angular resolution of 2°. An active BGO veto shield is used for the definition of the field of view and for background rejection.
After integration and test at CNES in Toulouse, the flight model of SPI recently underwent a one month pre-launch calibration at the CEA center of Bruyères le Châtel, using an accelerator for homogeneity measurements and high activity radioactive sources for imaging performance measurements.
This paper presents the scientific goals and the different detector components of SPI and reports on the test and calibration campaigns. The methods used to achieve good timing alignment using the Digital Front End Electronics are described and the first detector performance and imaging capabilities are presented.
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