Polar-2 summer project: Building of XY table and paint analysis to prove it to be space qualified

Polar-2 instrument is designed to be able to measure the polarization of high energy rays coming from the most violent events in the universe - Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs)1. Due to an ability of the Earth’s atmosphere to block the x-ray and gamma-rays, polarization measurements must be done above it’s denser layers2. A solution to this is installing the device to a China Space Station (CSS). This will allow the Polar-2 to measure polarization of energetic rays from the Low Earth Orbit, thus while being above the absorbing layers of the atmosphere3. The instrument will use scintillators with SiPMs (Silicon Photo-Multipliers) to measure the rays from the GRBs. Therefore, a testing of these detectors must be performed before the space flight. Polar-2 is expected to have 100 detector modules, each containing an array of 64 scintil-lators. To reduce the human error from testing such an amount of detectors, an automated system - XY table, was proposed as a solution. The aim of it is to move an EM wave source between the modules and their array without human interference. Construction of such a system is the objective of this project.