Cryogenic Testing Of Reflective Optical Components And Telescope Systems

Abstract

This paper documents and investigates the optical performance of metal mirrors at cryogenic temperatures.It also reviews the telescope system level optical performance for several telescope systems designed and fabricated at SSG.These include data on the LAIRTS Telescope (Large Aperture Infrared Telescope Sensor), the CLAES Telescope (Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer), and the SPIRIT II Telescope (Spatial Infrared Rocketborne Interferometer Telescope).A brief discussion of the design and fabrication of these mirrors is included along with a summary of the driving design performance constraints on cryogenic infrared optics.A review of the test techniques and cryogenic test facilities is given. Interferometric testing is the primary tool used to test these mirrors and systems. This section of the paper also discusses the data analysis methods utilized to determine the cryogenic optical performance of these mirrors.

Application of a generalized diffraction analysis to the design of nonstandard Lyot-stop systems for earth limb viewing radiometers

“…Examples include systems for radiometry and spectrometry, using grating, interferometer or dichroic filter devices, [4][5][6][7][8]28,29 and these can be of more than one type within the same instrument. 3,28 Such systems may share the instrument field of view, by this being subdivided, for example, using a second field stop, which has multiple apertures. 3,7,28 In addition, each detection system may have multiple channels, typically to detect different atmosphere gas species by use of appropriate spectral range and resolution.…”

“…3,28 Such systems may share the instrument field of view, by this being subdivided, for example, using a second field stop, which has multiple apertures. 3,7,28 In addition, each detection system may have multiple channels, typically to detect different atmosphere gas species by use of appropriate spectral range and resolution. The spectral requirements determine the type of spectrometer systems and the grouping of channels within each system.…”