The Lunar Environment Heliophysics X-ray Imager (LEXI) Mission

B M Walsh; K D Kuntz; S Busk; T Cameron; D Chornay; A Chuchra; M R Collier; C Connor; H K Connor; T E Cravens; N Dobson; M Galeazzi; H Kim; J Kujawski; C K Paw U; F S Porter; V Naldoza; R Nutter; R Qudsi; D G Sibeck; S Sembay; M Shoemaker; K Simms; N E Thomas; E Atz; G Winkert

doi:10.1007/s11214-024-01063-4

The Lunar Environment Heliophysics X-ray Imager (LEXI) Mission

Space Sci Rev. 2024;220(4):37. doi: 10.1007/s11214-024-01063-4. Epub 2024 May 14.

Authors

B M Walsh¹, K D Kuntz², S Busk¹, T Cameron³, D Chornay³, A Chuchra⁴, M R Collier³, C Connor¹, H K Connor³, T E Cravens⁵, N Dobson³, M Galeazzi⁶, H Kim⁷, J Kujawski⁸, C K Paw U¹, F S Porter³, V Naldoza¹, R Nutter³, R Qudsi¹, D G Sibeck³, S Sembay⁹, M Shoemaker³, K Simms³, N E Thomas¹⁰, E Atz¹, G Winkert³

Affiliations

¹ Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, 02215 MA USA.
² The Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 21218 MD USA.
³ NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, 20771 MD USA.
⁴ Thermac LLC, Annapolis, 21401 MD USA.
⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 66045 KS USA.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Miami, Miami, 33146 FL USA.
⁷ Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria.
⁸ Brandywine Photonics, College Station, 77845 TX USA.
⁹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
¹⁰ Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, Huntsville, 35808 AL USA.

Abstract

The Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) is a wide field-of-view soft X-ray telescope developed to study solar wind-magnetosphere coupling. LEXI is part of the Blue Ghost 1 mission comprised of 10 payloads to be deployed on the lunar surface. LEXI monitors the dayside magnetopause position and shape as a function of time by observing soft X-rays (0.1-2 keV) emitted from solar wind charge-exchange between exospheric neutrals and high charge-state solar wind plasma in the dayside magnetosheath. Measurements of the shape and position of the magnetopause are used to test temporal models of meso- and macro-scale magnetic reconnection. To image the boundary, LEXI employs lobster-eye optics to focus X-rays to a microchannel plate detector with a 9.1 ${}^{\circ}\times {9.1}^{\circ}$ field of view.

Keywords: Lunar; Magnetopause; Reconnection; X-ray imaging.