6 Calibrations

The SAS has been widely used in analysis of in-flight calibration observations. An overview of the calibration status is supplied in the accompanying instrument descriptions. The data have been gathered to verify the on-ground measurements where the latter were not possible in a flight-representative mode. Due to these extensive ground calibration activities, the existing calibration knowledge was sufficient to enable the scientific analysis as described in the accompanying papers. Nevertheless, verification of the cross-calibration between XMM instruments, and between XMM and other observatories (CHANDRA, Beppo-SAX and RXTE) is on-going.

After public release of the SAS, the calibration and Performance Verification observation data sets will be made public through the XMM-Newton Archive (see Table 3).