Design of a nano-satellite demonstrator of an infrared imaging space interferometer: the HyperCube

Dohlen, Kjetil; Vivès, S.; Rakotonimbahy, E.; Sarkar, Tanmoy; Ava, Tanzila Tasnim; Baccichet, Nicola; Savini, G.; Swinyard, Bruce

doi:10.1117/12.2057226

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Another proposed mission, TALC (191;192) , is a hybrid between a single-aperture telescope and an interferometer and thus demonstrates technologies for a structurally connected interferometer. There are also concepts using nanosats (193) . Recently, the European community carried out the Far-Infrared Space Interferometer Critical Assessment (FP7-FISICA), resulting in a design concept for the Far-Infrared Interferometric Telescope (FIRIT).…”

Section: Interferometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: far-infrared instrumentation and technological development for the next decade

Farrah

Smith

Ardila

et al. 2019

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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Far-infrared astronomy has advanced rapidly since its inception in the late 1950's, driven by a maturing technology base and an expanding community of researchers. This advancement has shown that observations at far-infrared wavelengths are important in nearly all areas of astrophysics, from the search for habitable planets and the origin of life, to the earliest stages of galaxy assembly in the first few hundred million years of cosmic history. The combination of a still developing portfolio of technologies, particularly in the field of detectors, and a widening ensemble of platforms within which these technologies can be deployed, means that far-infrared astronomy holds the potential for paradigm-shifting advances over the next decade. In this review, we examine current and future far-infrared observing platforms, including ground-based, sub-orbital, and space-based facilities, and discuss the technology development pathways that will enable and enhance these platforms to best address the challenges facing far-infrared astronomy in the 21st century.

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Section: Interferometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Review: far-infrared instrumentation and technological development for the next decade

Farrah

Smith

Ardila

et al. 2019

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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“…Nano-satellites, and more specifically CubeSats, may be the way to convince spacial agencies that the technique can be mastered in space. 2 The goal of the FIRST-S project falls in that category.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CubeSats as pathfinders for planetary detection: the FIRST-S satellite

et al. 2014

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The idea behind FIRST (Fibered Imager foR a Single Telescope) is to use single-mode fibers to combine multiple apertures in a pupil plane as such as to synthesize a bigger aperture. The advantages with respect to a pure imager are i) relaxed tolerance on the pointing and cophasing, ii) higher accuracy in phase measurement, and iii) availability of compact, precise, and active single-mode optics like Lithium Niobate. The latter point being a huge asset in the context of a space mission. One of the problems of DARWIN or SIM-like projects was the difficulty to find low cost pathfinders missions. But the fact that Lithium Niobate optic is small and compact makes it easy to test through small nanosats missions. Moreover, they are commonly used in the telecom industry, and have already been tested on communication satellites. The idea of the FIRST-S demonstrator is to spatialize a 3U CubeSat with a Lithium Niobate nulling interferometer. The technical challenges of the project are: star tracking, beam combination, and nulling capabilities. The optical baseline of the interferometer would be 30 cm, giving a 2.2 AU spatial resolution at distance of 10 pc. The scientific objective of this mission would be to study the visible emission of exozodiacal light in the habitable zone around the closest stars.Comment: SPIE 2014 -- Astronomical telescopes and instrumentation -- Montrea

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“…Optimal design of our mask should therefore avoid duplicating baseline lengths, privileging the distribution of baseline lengths as uniformly as possible while ignoring their angular distribution. We optimized the sub aperture layout through an iterative process based on a damped least squares minimization engine (the Microsoft XL Solver) using as merit function the comparison of actual baseline lengths with a set of "ideal" lengths, corresponding to an even distribution on a linear ramp [2]. The resulting pupil layout and associated instantaneous u-v plane coverage are shown in Figure 7.…”

Section: Pupil Layoutmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of its aims is to develop a CubeSat platform for testing key space technology bricks applicable to a future FIR interferometry mission. While the critical technology brick that was selected for implementation on such a platform was an accelerometer under development by Assist in Gravitation and Instrumentation (AGI) in Rome [1], it was decided to also implement a miniature, non freeflying, demonstration of the hypertelescope concept [2].…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We consider a straw-man design ( Figure 5) consisting of seven, meter-sized free-flying sub-apertures (D=1m) on a kilometric baseline (B=1km), organized in a non-redundant array [2]. Relying on relative movements governed by complex orbital calculations which are beyond the scope of this paper, we consider the array to be constantly re-arranging itself within this general frame, in such a way as to cover a maximum number of independent baselines within a given observing period.…”

Section: A Strawman Payloadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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