Contrast performance of an 8m off-axis, segmented space telescope equipped with an adaptive optics system

Axel Potier; Garreth Ruane; Kiarash Tajdaran; Chris Stark; Pin Chen; Larry Dewell; Roser Juanola-Parramon; Alison Nordt; Laurent Pueyo; A.J. Eldorado Riggs; David Redding; Dan Sirbu

doi:10.1117/12.2629902

27 August 2022 Contrast performance of an 8m off-axis, segmented space telescope equipped with an adaptive optics system

Axel Potier, Garreth Ruane, Kiarash Tajdaran, Chris Stark, Pin Chen, Larry Dewell, Roser Juanola-Parramon, Alison Nordt, Laurent Pueyo, A.J. Eldorado Riggs, David Redding, Dan Sirbu

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12180, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 121805D (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2629902
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2022, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Conference Poster

Abstract

The Astro2020 decadal survey recommended a ~6m IR/O/UV telescope equipped with a coronagraph instrument to directly image exoEarths in the habitable zone of their host star. A telescope of such size may need to be segmented to be folded and then carried in current launch vehicles. However, a segmented primary mirror introduces the potential for mid spatial frequency optical wavefront instabilities during the science operations that would degrade the coronagraph performance. A coronagraph instrument with a wavefront sensing and control (WS&C) system can stabilize the wavefront with a picometer precision at high temporal frequencies (<1Hz). In this work, we study a realistic set of aberrations based on a finite element model of a slightly bigger (8m circumscribed, 6.7m inscribed diameter) segmented telescope with its payload. We model an adaptive optics (AO) system numerically to compute the post-AO residuals. The residuals then feed an end-to-end model of a vector vortex coronagraph instrument. The long exposure contrast thus obtained is finally used in an ExoEarth yield method calculation to understand the overall benefits of the adaptive optics system in the flagship mission success.

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Axel Potier, Garreth Ruane, Kiarash Tajdaran, Chris Stark, Pin Chen, Larry Dewell, Roser Juanola-Parramon, Alison Nordt, Laurent Pueyo, A.J. Eldorado Riggs, David Redding, and Dan Sirbu "Contrast performance of an 8m off-axis, segmented space telescope equipped with an adaptive optics system", Proc. SPIE 12180, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 121805D (27 August 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2629902

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