DARWIN mission and configuration trade-off

Oswald Wallner; Klaus Ergenzinger; Reinhold Flatscher; Ulrich Johann

doi:10.1117/12.671658

28 June 2006 DARWIN mission and configuration trade-off

Oswald Wallner, Klaus Ergenzinger, Reinhold Flatscher, Ulrich Johann

Proceedings Volume 6268, Advances in Stellar Interferometry; 626827 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671658
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The European DARWIN mission aims at detection and characterization of Earth-like exo-planets as well as at aperture synthesis imaging. The method to be applied is nulling interferometry in the mid-infrared wavelength regime. The DARWIN instrument consists of a flotilla of free-flying spacecraft, one spacecraft carrying the optics for beam recombination and three or more spacecraft carrying the large collector telescopes. We provide a trade-off of different configuration, payload, and mission concepts. We discuss various two and three-dimensional aperture configurations with three or four telescopes, beam routing schemes, phase modulation methods, and beam recombination and detection schemes as well as different launch vehicle configurations, launch scenarios, and orbits. We trade the different DARWIN concepts by assessing the performance in terms of science return, development risk, and planning.

Citation Download Citation

Oswald Wallner, Klaus Ergenzinger, Reinhold Flatscher, and Ulrich Johann "DARWIN mission and configuration trade-off", Proc. SPIE 6268, Advances in Stellar Interferometry, 626827 (28 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671658

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