Characterizing Exoplanets in the Visible and Infrared: A Spectrometer Concept for the EChO Space Mission
Abstract
Transit-spectroscopy of exoplanets is one of the key observational techniques to characterize the extrasolar planet and its atmosphere. The observational challenges of these measurements require dedicated instrumentation and only the space environment allows an undisturbed access to earth-like atmospheric features such as water or carbon-dioxide. Therefore, several exoplanet-specific space missions are currently being studied. One of them is EChO, the Exoplanet Characterization Observatory, which is part of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program, and which is one of four candidates for the M3 launch slot in 2024. In this paper we present the results of our assessment study of the EChO spectrometer, the only science instrument onboard this spacecraft. The instrument is a multi-channel all-reflective dispersive spectrometer, covering the wavelength range from 400 nm to 16 microns simultaneously with a moderately low spectral resolution. We illustrate how the key technical challenge of the EChO mission - the high photometric stability - influences the choice of spectrometer concept and drives fundamentally the instrument design. First performance evaluations underline the fitness of the elaborated design solution for the needs of the EChO mission.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1305.3089,
title = {Characterizing Exoplanets in the Visible and Infrared: A Spectrometer Concept for the EChO Space Mission},
author = {A. M. Glauser and R. van Boekel and O. Krause and Th. Henning and B. Benneke and J. Bouwman and P. E. Cubillos and I. J. M. Crossfield and Ö. H. Detre and M. Ebert and U. Grözinger and M. Güdel and J. Harrington and K. Justtanont and U. Klaas and R. Lenzen and N. Madhusudhan and M. R. Meyer and C. Mordasini and F. Müller and R. Ottensamer and J. -Y. Plesseria and S. P. Quanz and A. Reiners and E. Renotte and R. -R. Rohloff and S. Scheithauer and H. M. Schmid and J. -R. Schrader and U. Seemann and D. Stam and B. Vandenbussche and U. Wehmeier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1305.3089},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
20 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation