The deployable telescope: a cutting-edge solution for high spatial and temporal resolved Earth observation
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Dennis Dolkens
Dennis Dolkens is a PhD candidate in the Department Space Engineering at the Faculty Aerospace Engineering of the Delft University of Technology. He has been working on the Deployable Telescope for 6 years, first as an MSc student and after that as a part of his PhD research.
Hans Kuiper is a senior systems engineer, senior research manager and Assistant/Professor in the department of Space Engineering at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the Delft University of Technology. Before joining the TU Delft in 2008 he worked for 28 years in the Dutch high-tech industry as a senior systems engineer and research group leader within Philips Research, Dutch Space (now ADS Leiden) and ASML, respectively.
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Victor Villalba Corbacho
Victor Villalba Corbacho is a PhD candidate in the Department of Space Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. His research interests are in space systems engineering and thermal structures for space applications.
Abstract
The increase of spatial and temporal resolution for Earth observation (EO) is the ultimate driver for science and societal applications. However, the state-of-the-art EO missions like DigitalGlobe’s Worldview-3, are very costly. Moreover, this system has a high mass of 2800 kg and limited swath width of about 15 km which limits the temporal resolution. In this article, we present the status of the deployable space telescope (DST) project, which has been running for 6 years now at the Delft University of Technology, as a cutting-edge solution to solve this issue. Deployable optics have the potential of revolutionising the field of high resolution EO. By splitting up the primary mirror (M1) of a telescope into deployable segments and placing the secondary mirror (M2) on a deployable boom, the launch volume of a telescope can be reduced by a factor of 4 or more, allowing for much lower launch costs. This allows for larger EO constellations, providing image data with a much better revisit time than existing solutions. The DST specification baseline, based on Wordview-3, aims to provide images with a ground resolution of 25 cm (panchromatic 450–650 nm) from an orbital altitude of 500 km. In this paper, the current status of the optical, thermo-mechanical, and active optics systems design are described. The concurrent design approach combined with a strict bottom-up and top-down compliant systems engineering approach show that the DST is a healthy system concept.
About the authors
Dennis Dolkens is a PhD candidate in the Department Space Engineering at the Faculty Aerospace Engineering of the Delft University of Technology. He has been working on the Deployable Telescope for 6 years, first as an MSc student and after that as a part of his PhD research.
Hans Kuiper is a senior systems engineer, senior research manager and Assistant/Professor in the department of Space Engineering at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the Delft University of Technology. Before joining the TU Delft in 2008 he worked for 28 years in the Dutch high-tech industry as a senior systems engineer and research group leader within Philips Research, Dutch Space (now ADS Leiden) and ASML, respectively.
Victor Villalba Corbacho is a PhD candidate in the Department of Space Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. His research interests are in space systems engineering and thermal structures for space applications.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to a series of Master’s students who made these results possible. Furthermore, the Dutch HTSM TKI funding and ESA’s NPI funding made it possible to attract the PhD students being two of the three authors of this article.
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©2018 THOSS Media & De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Cover and Frontmatter
- Editorial
- At odds with Nobel
- Community
- News
- Topical Issue: Space Optics
- Editorial
- Space optics
- Research Articles
- The European optical contribution to the James Webb Space Telescope
- The deployable telescope: a cutting-edge solution for high spatial and temporal resolved Earth observation
- Stray light and ghosts in catadioptric spectrometers: incorporating grating scatter measurements into simulations and ghost sensitivity into system design
- Absorbing Aerosol Sensor on Gao-Fen 5B satellite
- A telescope for LISA – the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Cover and Frontmatter
- Editorial
- At odds with Nobel
- Community
- News
- Topical Issue: Space Optics
- Editorial
- Space optics
- Research Articles
- The European optical contribution to the James Webb Space Telescope
- The deployable telescope: a cutting-edge solution for high spatial and temporal resolved Earth observation
- Stray light and ghosts in catadioptric spectrometers: incorporating grating scatter measurements into simulations and ghost sensitivity into system design
- Absorbing Aerosol Sensor on Gao-Fen 5B satellite
- A telescope for LISA – the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
