Four-meter lunar engineering telescope

Keith Peacock; Judith A. Giannini; Charles C. Kilgus; Pierre Y. Bely; B. Scott May; Shannon A. Cooper; Gerard H. Schlimm; Charles Sounder; Karen A. Ormond; Eric A. Cheek

doi:10.1117/12.46721

1 September 1991 Four-meter lunar engineering telescope

Keith Peacock, Judith A. Giannini, Charles C. Kilgus, Pierre Y. Bely, B. Scott May, Shannon A. Cooper, Gerard H. Schlimm, Charles Sounder, Karen A. Ormond, Eric A. Cheek

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 1494, Space Astronomical Telescopes and Instruments; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.46721
Event: Orlando '91, 1991, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

The 16-meter diffraction limited lunar telescope incorporates a primary mirror with 312 one-meter segments; 3 nanometer active optics surface control with laser metrology and hexapod positioners; a space frame structure with one-millimeter stability; and a hexapod mount for pointing. The design data needed to limit risk in this development can be obtained by building a smaller engineering telescope on the moon with all of the features of the 16-meter design. This paper presents a 4.33-meter engineering telescope concept developed by the Summer 1990 Student Program of the NASA/JHU Space Grant Consortium Lunar Telescope Project. The primary mirror, made up of 18 one-meter hexagonal segments, is sized to provide interesting science as well as engineering data. The optics are configured as a Ritchey-Chretien with a coude relay to the focal plane beneath the surface. The optical path is continuously monitored with 3-nanometer precision interferometrically. An active optics processor and piezoelectric actuators operate to maintain the end-to-end optical configuration established by wave front sensing using a guide star. The mirror segments, consisting of a one-centimeter thick faceplate on 30-cm deep ribs, maintain the surface figure to a few nanometers under lunar gravity and thermal environment.

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Keith Peacock, Judith A. Giannini, Charles C. Kilgus, Pierre Y. Bely, B. Scott May, Shannon A. Cooper, Gerard H. Schlimm, Charles Sounder, Karen A. Ormond, and Eric A. Cheek "Four-meter lunar engineering telescope", Proc. SPIE 1494, Space Astronomical Telescopes and Instruments, (1 September 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.46721

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