Studies were initiated in 1995 at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto to explore both the application of new technologies and the economical utilization of commercial products to the design of a new generation of scientific research satellites. A 2.4-meter Solar System Observatory (SSO) has been designed to carry out as its primary mission imaging and spectroscopy of comets and of the outer planets form geosynchronous orbit. Such a Hubble-class telescope with a science payload consisting of four UV/EUV spectrographs and a high- resolution imager having 0.06 arcsec spatial resolution can now be built and launched within the budget of a NASA Discovery Mission. Following a one-year science program under the direction of the principle investigator, the SSO would transition to a guest observer facility. Although optimized for cometary and planetary measurements, SSO would have outstanding capability for a variety of astrophysical measurements. SSO would also serve as a prototype for other similar low-cost space observatories that could be optimized for stellar, extragalactic and other applications.
KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Space telescopes, Telescopes, Space operations, Ultraviolet radiation, Observatories, Imaging systems, Spectrographs, Silicon carbide, Solar system
We report on a design for a geosynchronous UV observatory optimized for imaging and spectrography of planets and comets. This solar system telescope (SST), based on a commercial developed spacecraft, was proposed to NASA as a Discovery mission. It can also serve as a low-cost orbiting observatory for other disciplines in space astronomy. The SST consists of a 140-cm-aperture telescope with an instrumentation section comprising four spectrographs and a wide-field UV imager. We use silicon carbide mirrors and a telescope structure provided by the Vavilov State Optical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. The spacecraft is derived from Lockheed Martin's commercial remote sensing satellite (CRSS), which provides attitude control, power, communications, and command and data handling, with minimal modifications. Using this approach, we were able to design an observatory with capabilities comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope at approximately 1/20th the cost.
Conference Committee Involvement (1)
Enabling Sensor and Platform Technologies for Spaceborne Remote Sensing
9 November 2004 | Honolulu, Hawai'i, United States
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