The assembly, calibration, and predicted performance of the SISTINE-2 sounding rocket payload

The Suborbital Imaging Spectrograph for Transition-region Irradiance from Nearby Exoplanet host stars (SIS- TINE) sounding rocket payload is an f /30 imaging spectrograph designed to measure the far ultraviolet (1000 - 1275 and 1300 - 1565 A) output of exoplanet host stars. The instrument is composed of an f /14 Cassegrain telescope with a 500 mm diameter primary mirror feeding a 2.1x magnifying spectrograph. Light is dispersed by a blazed, holographically ruled grating, reflected off a powered fold mirror, and recorded on a large format microchannel plate (MCP) detector. The instrument incorporates enhanced LiF (eLiF) protected aluminum on the primary, secondary, and fold mirrors. The secondary mirror also has a protective AlF3 capping layer, applied using atomic layer deposition (ALD). The detector is composed of two windowless 113 x 42 mm segments with cross delay line anodes and CsI photocathodes. The detector utilizes ALD processed borosilicate plates, and additionally serves as a flight test for detectors on future astrophysics missions. The instrument reaches a peak effective area of 99.9 cm2 at 1145 A. The assembly of SISTINE-2 included the application of new photocathodes to the detector, showing improvements in quantum efficiency after laboratory tests. SISTINE-2 will observe the nearby F star Procyon in late 2021, making the first simultaneous observation from O VI through C IV and setting new empirical constraints on the radiation fields experienced by planets orbiting mid-F stars.