Single Aperture Large Telescope for Universe Studies (SALTUS) is a proposed NASA Probe class mission that will provide a powerful far-infrared (far-IR) pointed space observatory to explore our cosmic origins and the possibility of life elsewhere. During its 5 year baseline mission, SALTUS will perform groundbreaking studies towards 1000s of astrophysical targets, including the first galaxies, protoplanetary disks, and numerous solar system objects. SALTUS employs a deployable 14-m aperture, with a sunshield that will radiatively cool the off-axis primary to <45K, along with cryogenic coherent and incoherent detectors that span the 34 to 660 𝜇m far-IR range at both high and moderate spectral resolutions. This spectral range is unavailable to any existing ground or space observatory. SALTUS will have 16x the collecting area and 4x the angular resolution of Herschel and is de-signed for a lifetime ≥5 years. With its large aperture and powerful suite of instruments, SALTUS’s observations will provide a giant leap forward in our capabilities to study the local and distant universe.
The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), which will be integrated with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, will collect science data that will be used to monitor the health of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. The Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) Detection Assembly (SDA), built and characterized by Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), is a subsystem of OCI consisting of 32 channels covering seven discrete optical bands of interest. A total of 16 SWIR Detection Subassemblies (SDSs) compose the SDA and house the cold optical system. The science data optical input for each SDS is supplied by a 0.22 NA multimode fiber interfacing with a fiber adapter. The diverging light from the fiber is collimated, split by a dichroic beamsplitter to two separate channels, filtered by the science filter, and then reimaged onto the single-element detectors with a final 0.76 NA. Aspheric, diamond-turned powered elements are used throughout the optical design. Fabrication and alignment tolerance analysis/budgets are balanced to ensure the optical system meets throughput requirements. All systems are aligned at ambient temperature using an InSb camera and an in-line illumination microscope system to directly image the active detector area through the science filters. Compensators used during alignment are detector focus and decenter, which are adjusted via photoetched shims in increments of 25 μm. Average focus and centering errors were less than 8 μm among all 32 flight and 10 flight spare detectors. Each SDS spectral response and conversion gain was verified at operational temperature of -65°C in vacuum.
The modulation transfer function (MTF) is a useful measure in image quality analysis and performance budget determination. Sensitive long wavelength infrared (LWIR) detectors for astronomical space telescopes require slight modifications to the existing MTF measurement methods due to the increased prevalence of high dark current pixels. Presented here are the specifics of a modified slanted edge method to determine the MTF in λc > 10 μm HgCdTe detectors to be used with the planned Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission. The measured MTF at Nyquist using 6 μm light is 0.22 ± 0.02 and is 0.25 ± 0.02 using 10 μm light for both 250 and 350 mV of applied reverse bias. These measurements are from edge spread functions with median signal values around 50% of the well depth, as the MTF is expected to change with signal value due to two brighter-fatter type effects. The expected trends caused by the influences of these two effects and the expected trends with wavelength of absorbed photons are all observed.
For space optical systems that image extended scenes such as earth-viewing systems, modulation transfer function (MTF) test data is directly applicable to system optical resolution. For many missions, it is the most direct metric for establishing the best focus of the instrument. Additionally, MTF test products can be combined to predict overall imaging performance. For fixed focus instruments, finding the best focus during ground testing is critical to achieving good imaging performance. The ground testing should account for the full-imaging system, operational parameters, and operational environment. Testing the full-imaging system removes uncertainty caused by breaking configurations and the combination of multiple subassembly test results. For earth viewing, the imaging system needs to be tested at infinite conjugate. Operational environment test conditions should include temperature and vacuum. Optical MTF testing in the presence of operational vibration and gravity release is less straightforward and may not be possible on the ground. Gravity effects are mitigated by testing in multiple orientations. Many space telescope systems are designed and built to have optimum performance in a gravity-free environment. These systems can have imaging performance that is dominated by aberration including astigmatism. This paper discusses how the slanted edge MTF test is applied to determine the best focus of a space optical telescope in ground testing accounting for gravity sag effects. Actual optical system test results and conclusions are presented.
Mounting large reflective-refractive optical elements for cryogenic space application requires careful engineering. Optical wavefront error performance is balanced with surviving launch environments and cryogenic temperatures. Mounting and ground testing of a 25 cm by 15 cm plano germanium optical beamsplitter element was completed. Cryogenic WFE testing was performed down to 115 K predicting compliance to operational environment performance requirements. This paper discusses the mount engineering including detailed analysis, testing, and results.
Multispectral space telescopes with visible to long wave infrared spectral bands provide difficult alignment challenges. The visible channels require precision in alignment and stability to provide good image quality in short wavelengths. This is most often accomplished by choosing materials with near zero thermal expansion glass or ceramic mirrors metered with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) that are designed to have a matching thermal expansion. The IR channels are less sensitive to alignment but they often require cryogenic cooling for improved sensitivity with the reduced radiometric background. Finding efficient solutions to this difficult problem of maintaining good visible image quality at cryogenic temperatures has been explored with the building and testing of a telescope simulator. The telescope simulator is an onaxis ZERODUR® mirror, CFRP metered set of optics. Testing has been completed to accurately measure telescope optical element alignment and mirror figure changes in a cryogenic space simulated environment. Measured alignment error and mirror figure error test results are reported with a discussion of their impact on system optical performance.
The Thermal Earth Resource Monitoring Instrument (THERMI) has been designed to meet stringent Landsat heritage requirements with reduced size, weight and power (SWaP). The instrument design provides Earth resource monitoring through the use of two long-wave infrared bands that measure the land surface temperatures. These bands are especially valuable for monitoring water resources and water use. Instrument subsystems, including electronics, cryocooler, thermal management, optical telescope assembly, focal plane module, in-flight calibrator, and scene select mirror were studied and conceptually designed to reduce overall THERMI SWaP. Reductions in SWaP make it possible for THERMI to fit on a small satellite bus with room available for an additional optical instrument. Since mission cost historically correlates well with mass and power on-orbit, it is expected that significant cost savings will result from the predicted SWaP reductions.
Aluminum mirrors and telescopes can be built to perform well if the material is processed correctly and can be relatively low cost and short schedule. However, the difficulty of making high quality aluminum telescopes increases as the size increases, starting with uniform heat treatment through the thickness of large mirror substrates. A risk reduction effort was started to build and test a ½ meter diameter super polished aluminum mirror. Material selection, the heat treatment process and stabilization are the first critical steps to building a successful mirror. In this study, large aluminum blanks of both conventional AA-6061 per AMS-A-22771 and RSA AA-6061 were built, heat treated and stress relieved. Both blanks were destructively tested with a cut through the thickness. Hardness measurements and tensile tests were completed. We present our results in this paper and make suggestions for modification of procedures and future work.
Focal Plane Arrays (FPA) consisting of multiple Sensor Chip Assemblies (SCA) in a precision aligned mosaic are being increasingly used in optical instruments requiring large format detectors. The Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey Mission (JMAPS) requires very precise positional alignment and stability of its 2 x 2 SCA mosaic at operational temperatures to meet its precision sky mapping mission requirements. Key performance requirements include: detector active area co-planarity, in-plane alignment, and thermal stability. This paper presents an overview of the JMAPS Focal Plane Array Assembly, its alignment and thermal-mechanical stability requirements, and associated test-validated performance in a cryogenic vacuum environment.
Optical systems are designed for a great variety of purposes and are influenced by significantly differing requirements.
Due to these differences, material trade studies are part of almost all optical system designs. These trade studies must use
objective comparative parameters in order to choose the best optical and structural materials for the optical system.
Material figures of merit such as specific stiffness and thermal stability are traditional figures of merit used in materials
trade studies. In this paper, we explore additional material figures of merit arising from both technical and programmatic
concerns. We show how to use all of these figures of merit simultaneously in a systematic approach to optimum
materials selection.
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