On-ground characterization and calibration of the scientific payload onboard the LICIACube ASI mission

LEIA (Liciacube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid) a narrow angle camera and LUKE (Liciacube Unit Key Explorer), a Gecko wide angle camera imager equipped with an RGB Bayer pattern filter are the two scientific payloads of the LICIACUBE (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids) [1] cubesat part of the DART mission [2]. The scientific imaging will be focused on: study of the plume evolution; high-resolution characterization of the impact area on Dimorphos and high resolution (panchromatic) and spectrophotometric analysis of the Didymos system us- ing RGB data after the DART S/C impact. During the development of LICIACUBE on-ground calibration activities were performed at ARGOTEC premises. Two different setups were used during calibration with and without a radiometric calibrated sources Measurements without illuminations sources were devoted to the channel electrical characterization. Measurements obtained by the external illumination source were mainly devoted to the radiometric calibra- tion and spatial noise characterization. To check temperature dependencies of the channel performance parameters all the measurements without light sources were performed at differ- ent operative detector temperatures. The detailed analyses of the collected data allowed: to check for the performance of the payload; to define the calibration pipeline required to process the raw images that will be acquired during the mission operative phase. The results obtained include the definition of: 1. channel electrical parameters: o Dark current and dark current non-uniformity; o Readout noise; o Fixed pattern noise 2. ) radiometric performances: o Responsivity vs. exposure time o Responsivity vs impinging flux o Responsivity vs source spectral component. We here describe the performed measurement and the adopted analysis approach to derive the calibration parameters as well as an evaluation of the scientific performances reachable using the defined pipeline on simulated images.