Related papers: Mirrors for space telescopes: degradation issues
New development approaches, including launch vehicles and advances in sensors, computing, and software, have lowered the cost of entry into space, and have enabled a revolution in low-cost, high-risk Small Satellite (SmallSat) missions. To…
I review the present status of liquid mirror telescopes. In a nutshell: LMTs do work and several have been built and used. Extensive interferometric tests of liquid mirrors (the largest one having a diameter of 2.5 meters) show diffraction…
Cherenkov Telescopes are equipped with optical dishes of large diameter -- in general based on segmented mirrors -- with typical angular resolution of a few arc-minutes. To evaluate the mirror's quality specific metrological systems are…
We describe a technology for the fabrication of inexpensive and versatile mirrors through the use of a new type of nanoengineered optical material composed by the spreading of a self-assembling reflective colloidal film spread at the…
The mirrors installed on Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes like the MAGIC telescopes in La Palma, Canary Islands, are constantly exposed to the harsh environment. They have to withstand wind-induced corrosion from dust and sand,…
A large space-based telescope aimed at detecting and characterizing the atmospheres of Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars will require unprecedented contrast and stability. However, damage to the primary mirror due to micrometeoroid…
The quality of robot vision greatly affects the performance of automation systems, where occlusions stand as one of the biggest challenges. If the target is occluded from the sensor, detecting and grasping such objects become very…
A major goal of proposed future space observatories, such as the Habitable World Observatory, is to directly image and characterize Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars to search for habitability signatures requiring the starlight…
In order for optical cavities to enable strong light-matter interactions for quantum metrology, networking, and scalability in quantum computing systems, their mirrors must have minimal losses. However, high-finesse dielectric cavity…
Optical resonators are increasingly important tools in science and technology. Their applications range from laser physics, atomic clocks, molecular spectroscopy, and single-photon generation to the detection, trapping and cooling of atoms…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
The widespread use of metallic structures in space technology brings risk of degradation which occurs under space conditions. New types of materials dedicated for space applications, that have been developed in the last decade, are in…
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology can provide for deformable mirrors (DMs) with excellent performance within a favorable economy of scale. Large MEMS-based astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems such as the Gemini Planet…
X-ray observatories contribute fundamental advances in Solar System studies by probing Sun-object interactions, developing planet and satellite surface composition maps, probing global magnetospheric dynamics, and tracking astrochemical…
Active optics is defined as the control of the shape and the alignment of the components of an optical system at low temporal frequencies. For modern large telescopes with flexible monolithic or segmented primary mirrors and also flexible…
Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes for very-high energy gamma-ray astronomy need mirror with high reflectance roughly in the wavelength between 300 and 550 nm. The current standard reflective layer of such mirrors is aluminum. Being…
Laser propulsion has been proposed for relativistic interstellar flights, but it faces the significant challenge of requiring extremely powerful laser radiation due to the inherently low momentum transfer between the beam and the sail. The…
Adaptive optics (AO) offers an opportunity to stabilize an image and maximize the spatial resolution achievable by ground based telescopes by removing the distortions due to the atmosphere. Typically, the deformable mirror in an AO system…
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…
Space safety and astronomy are at odds. The problem posed by space debris and derelict satellites in the low Earth orbit is an existential threat to all space operations. These dangerous objects in space are more easily tracked with…