Related papers: Laboratory Demonstration of an Active Optics Syste…

Stratospheric High Altitude Balloons (HABs) have great potential as a remote sensing platform for Earth Observations that complements orbiting satellites and low flying drones. At altitudes between 20-35 kms, HABs operate significantly…

HERMES (High Energy Rapid Modular Ensemble of Satellites) Pathfinder is a space-borne mission based on a constellation of six nano-satellites flying in a low-Earth orbit (LEO). The 3U CubeSats, to be launched in early 2025, host…

The utilization of a 6.5m monolithic primary mirror in a compact three-mirror anastigmat (TMA) telescope design offers unprecedented capabilities to accommodate various next generation science instruments. This design enables the rapid and…

We report on a new x-ray imaging method, which combines the high spatial resolution of coherent diffraction imaging with the ability of dark field microscopy to map grains within thick polycrystalline specimens. An x-ray objective serves to…

There are scientific and technological needs to improve the co-phasing of the primary mirrors of segmented telescopes. We have developed a methodology for using the wavefront sensor of an adaptive optics (AO) system to disentangle the phase…

In the last few years the concept of an active space telescope has been greatly developed, to meet demanding requirements with a substantial reduction of tolerances, risks and costs. This is the frame of the LATT project (an ESA TRP) and…

We introduce a system and methods for the three-dimensional measurement of extended specular surfaces with high surface normal variations. Our system consists only of a mobile hand held device and exploits screen and front camera for…

CubeSats offer a flexible and low-cost option to increase the scientific and technological return of small-body exploration missions. ESA's Hera mission, the European component of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA)…

Coherent multi-transducer ultrasound (CoMTUS) creates an extended effective aperture through the coherent combination of multiple arrays, which results in images with enhanced resolution, extended field-of-view, and higher sensitivity. The…

For future space infrared astronomical coronagraphy, we perform experimental studies on the application of aluminum mirrors to a coronagraph. Cooled reflective optics is required for broad-band mid-infrared observations in space, while…

The Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) is a near-diffraction-limited 0.5m telescope that launched via NASA's super-pressure balloon technology on April 16, 2023. SuperBIT achieved precise pointing control through the…

In the framework of the GLARE-X (Geodesy via LAser Ranging from spacE X) project, led by INFN and funded for the years 2019-2021, aiming at significantly advance space geodesy, one shows the initial activities carried out in 2019 in order…

I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting areas and observing time/astronomer are only possible if we…

One of the instruments aboard the Sunrise III mission, the Tunable Magnetograph (TuMag), is a tunable imaging spectropolarimeter in visible wavelengths. It is designed to probe the vector magnetic field and the line-of-sight velocity of the…

As part of a study funded by NASA Headquarters, we are developing a Probe-class mission concept called the Cosmic Evolution Through UV Spectroscopy (CETUS). CETUS includes a 1.5-m aperture diameter telescope with a large field-of-view…

COMCUBE-S (COMCUBE-S (Compton Telescope CubeSat Swarm) is a proposed mission aimed at understanding the radiation mechanisms of ultra-relativistic jets from Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). It consists of a swarm of 16U CubeSats carrying a…

This article reports on the results of simulations conducted to assess the performance of a modal Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) system on a 10m telescope with one Deformable Mirror (DM) conjugated to the telescope pupil and a…

Concentrated solar power is a promising technique enabling renewable energy production with large scale solar power plants in the near future. Estimating quantitatively the reflectivity of a solar concentrator is a major issue, since it has…

The maintenance of primary mirror segment co-phasing is a critical aspect to the operation of segmented telescopes. However, speckle-based measurements of the phasing of the Keck primary have estimated semi-static surface aberrations of…

We have developed a calibration system based on a micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) mirror that is capable of delivering an optical beam over a wavelength range of 180 -- 2000 nm (0.62 -- 6.89 eV) in a sub-Kelvin environment. This…