Related papers: CUBESPEC: Low-cost space-based astronomical spectr…
The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) is a 6U NASA CubeSat carrying a low-resolution (R ~3000), near-ultraviolet (255 - 330nm) spectrograph fed by a rectangular primary Cassegrain. CUTE, is planned for launch in spring 2020 and…
Different arguments were being presented in the last decade about CubeSats and their applications. Some of them address wireless communication (5G and 6G technologies) trying to achieve better characteristics as coverage and connectivity.…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-milliarcsec (sub-mas) angular resolution, UV-Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the…
At a fraction the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities -- namely space-like…
Due to advances in observation and imaging technologies, modern astronomical satellites generate large volumes of data. This necessitates efficient onboard data processing and high-speed data downlink. Reflecting this trend is the VERTECS…
The volume available on small satellites restricts the size of optical apertures to a few centimetres, limiting the Ground-Sampling Distance (GSD) in the visible to typically 3 m at 500 km. We present in this paper the latest development of…
Optical navigation on a CubeSat must rely on the best extraction of the directions of some beacons from on-board images. We present an experiment on OPS-SAT, a CubeSat of the European Space Agency (ESA), that will characterize an onboard…
SCALES (Slicer Combined with an Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy) is a 2 to 5 micron high-contrast lenslet-based Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) designed to characterize exoplanets and their atmospheres. Like other…
The ultraviolet (UV) window has been largely unexplored through balloons for astronomy. We discuss here the development of a compact near-UV spectrograph with fiber optics input for balloon ights. It is a modified Czerny-Turner system built…
The gas pixel detector (GPD) is designed and developed for high-sensitivity astronomical X-ray polarimetry, which is a new window about to open in a few years. Due to the small mass, low power, and compact geometry of the GPD, we propose a…
CubeSats have become a meaningful option for deep-space exploration, but their autonomy must be increased to maximize the science return while limiting the complexity in operations. We present here a solution for an autonomous orbit…
Quasometry is precision measurement of celestial positions and apparent motion of very distant extragalactic objects, such as quasars, galactic nuclei, and QSOs. We use this term to identify a specific area of research, the methodology of…
Due to the structure of the NuSTAR telescope, photons at large off-axis (> 1deg) can reach the detectors directly (stray light), without passing through the instrument optics. At these off-axis angles NuSTAR essentially turns into a…
Space observatories for gravitational radiation such as LISA are equipped with dedicated on-board instrumentation capable of measuring magnetic fields with low-noise conditions at millihertz frequencies. The reason is that the core…
The Mini-EUSO instrument is a UV telescope to be placed inside the International Space Station (ISS), looking down on the Earth from a nadir-facing window in the Russian Zvezda module. Mini-EUSO will map the earth in the UV range (300 - 400…
New instrumental capabilities and the wealth of astrophysical information extractable from the near-infrared wavelength region have led to a growing interest in the field of high resolution spectroscopy at 1-5 mu. We aim to provide a…
The World Space Observatory - Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) space telescope is equipped with high dispersion (55,000) spectrographs working in the 1150-3100 {\AA} spectral range. To evaluate the impact of the design on the scientific objectives of…
There is a growing interest in Lunar exploration fed by the perception that the Moon can be made accessible to low-cost missions in the next decade. The on-going projects to set a communications relay in Lunar orbit and a deep space…
The rapid growth of imaging and spectroscopic surveys has intensified the need for efficient tools that support visual inspection, a practice that remains essential for tasks such as classification, catalog refinement, and validation of…
The Far Ultraviolet (FUV: hereafter 900-1150 A) is a spectral range which contains many of the ground state transitions of common elements but has had limited observational capabilities due to the unique technological requirements to…