Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:35:07.000Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Micro-Precision Interferometer Testbed Instrument Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

B. Hines ,
G. Neat ,
M.M. Colavita ,
R. Calvet  and
L. Sword
B. Hines
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA
G. Neat
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA
M.M. Colavita
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA
R. Calvet
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA
L. Sword
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California, USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The Micro-Precision Interferometer Testbed is essentially a space-based Michelson interferometer suspended in a ground-based laboratory. The purpose of the testbed is to serve as a proving ground for technologies needed for future space-based missions requiring low-vibration environments. A layered control architecture, utilizing isolation, structural control, and active optical control technologies, allows the system to achieve its vibration attenuation goals.

This paper focuses primarily on the interferometer instrument design for the testbed and the systems-level tradeoffs between the instrument and other systems due to the fact that the interferometer is on a large, lightly damped, flexible structure rather than on the ground. The testbed is designed to be a fully functioning interferometer spacecraft and makes use of flight-like hardware where possible, including an external star simulator, an attitude control system, fringe detection and tracking systems, delay lines, pointing control, laser metrology systems, and computers and electronic subsystems. The engineering decisions that led to the current instrument configuration are presented and explained.

Keywords

MPIoptical interferometryinterferometer testbedspace-based interferometry
Type
Instrumentation and Techniques
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 158: Very High Angular Resolution Imaging , 1994 , pp. 193 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1994 

References

[1] Laskin, R.A. and Martin, M.S., “Control/Structure system design of a spaceborne optical interferometer”, AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, 1989.Google Scholar
[2] Gershman, R., Rayman, M.D., and Shao, M. “A moderate space mission for optical interferometry,” 42nd Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, 1991, paper no. IAF-91–421.Google Scholar
[3] Reasenberg, R.D. et al, “Microarcsecond optical astrometry, an instrument and its astrophysical applications,” Astron. J. 96, No. 5, 1988, p. 1731.Google Scholar
[4] Colavita, M., Hines, B.E., and Shao, M. “A high-speed optical delay line for stellar interferometry,” ESO Conference on High-Resolution Imaging by Interferometry II, 1991, Garching, Germany.Google Scholar
[5] Clark, L.D., “A photon-camera star tracker for stellar interferometry”, SPIE Conference 627, Instrumentation in Astronomy VI, 1986, Tucson, Arizona, p. 838.Google Scholar
[6] Levine-West, M., Red-Horse, J., and Marek, E., “A systems approach to high fidelity modelling,” 1st International Symposium on Microdynamics and Accurate Control, 1992, Nice, France.Google Scholar
[7] Spanos, J.T. et al, “Control structure interaction in long baseline space interferometers,” 12th IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace, 1992, Ottobrunn, Germany.Google Scholar