Design and modeling of the formation-flying GNC system for the DARWIN interferometer
| Autor: | Bertrand Calvel, Sebastien Boulade, Finn Ankersen, Celine Beugnon |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
business.industry Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Interferometry Optics Planet Physics::Space Physics Astronomical interferometer Darwin (spacecraft) Angular resolution Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Aerospace engineering Optical metrology business Image resolution Constellation |
| Zdroj: | SPIE Proceedings. |
| ISSN: | 0277-786X |
| DOI: | 10.1117/12.568011 |
| Popis: | ESAs DARWIN mission is to accomplish the unprecedented challenge of finding Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars. To tell apart the planet from its blinding sun, the system relies upon nulling interferometry: the light collected by six free-flying telescopes is recombined inside a central hub, in a way that the beams from the star are nulled, while those from the planet interfere constructively. The diameter (50 to 500m) of the free-flying interferometer is determined by the need for angular resolution. In contrast, the differences in optical pathlength between the incoming beams must be kept below 5 nm. It is the purpose of the ongoing Interferometer Constellation Control Research & Development study for the European Space Agency (ESA) to propose a design and validate the performances for the GNC system adapted to such a high-precision formation-flying application. The requirements & detailed design of this GNC system are addressed first, including the close connection with the parallel ESA study called High Precision Optical Metrology used to verify the feasibility of the critical DARWIN optical metrology system. Then, the modelling & performance assessment of the GNC system is presented, together with the way forward to build a high precision coupled optical/GNC simulator. Keywords : Darwin, GNC, Spaceborne Interferometry, Formation Flying, Optical Metrology. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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