The Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment (OGRE): a NASA Suborbital Rocket Payload for High Performance X-ray Spectroscopy

The Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment, or OGRE, is a pair of NASA suborbital rocket missions that will develop key X-ray astrophysics technologies. The Ultimate mission will incorporate polished-Si optics from the Next Generation X-ray Optics group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center coupled with a high throughput, high resolving power grating array and an X-ray-CMOS-based camera. A Pathfinder flight (OGRE-P) will flight-prove key subsystems prior to the Ultimate mission and is slated for launch in early 2027. OGRE-P will utilize the already existing JET-X telescope, on loan from the Italian Space Agency, while also incorporating an existing EM-CCD-based camera. The grating arrays for both missions will utilize masters fabricated at Penn State's Nanofabrication Lab with replication performed by Nanoimprint Solutions. The individual gratings are stacked into modules by cosine Measurement Systems in the same way as they create Si-pore optics (SPOs) for the ESA Athena Observatory. The unique instrumentation suites for these OGRE missions will observe Capella as the astronomical target of interest and produce the highest resolution X-ray spectrum of this coronal-emission-line target to date.