Description:

The NASA-sponsored Micro-X Sounding Rocket successfully completed its second flight August 21, 2022. The Micro-X Rocket launches an X-ray telescope into space, takes a snapshot of a supernova remnant, then returns to Earth on a parachute and is recovered for another flight. Micro-X uses an array of superconducting Transition-Edge Sensors as its detector, and a huge challenge for this rocket was launching devices that operate at 75 thousands of a degree above absolute zero and have them stay cold while surviving 12gs of acceleration during flight. We will overview the mechanical and electrical design of this rocket payload, the engineering and scientific problems that were overcome to get it to flight, and the science that we can do with such an instrument.