Speaker
Description
The TOF is comprised of an outer "umbrella" and nearly hermetic inner "cube" giving a combined total surface area of $\sim53$ m$^2$. Counters will be mounted to the balloon gondola using a novel carbon fiber structure. Each counter end will be read out using a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) based analog front end. A high gain timing channel is sampled and digitized, while the low gain output is used for triggering. A central board processes all trigger inputs and will initiate a TOF and tracker read out based on interesting hit patterns. Beyond serving as the instrument trigger, the TOF will measure primary $\beta$ and charge $Z$. Here we report on hardware advances made over the past several months, current system performance, early testing results, and construction plans of the TOF system leading up to the launch of GAPS.
