Possible Predictors for the RI and Evolution of Hurricanes from Near-Coincident Satellite Observations of the Structure of Precipitation and Surface Winds: Hurricane Joaquin
No abstract available
Hristova-Veleva, Svetla↗
Engineering topics
Shen, Tsae-Pyng
Publications and source records attributed to Shen, Tsae-Pyng.
SIM Interferometer Testbed (SCDU) Status and Recent Results
SIM Lite is a space-borne stellar interferometer capable of searching for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars. This search will require measurement of astrometric angles with sub micro-arcsecond accuracy and optical pathlength differences to 1 picometer by the end of the five-year mission. One of the most significant technical risks in achieving this level of accuracy is from systematic errors that arise from spectral differences between candidate stars and nearby reference stars. The Spectral Calibration Development Unit (SCDU), in operation since 2007, has been used to explore this effect and demonstrate performance meeting SIM goals. In this paper we present the status of this testbed and recent results.
Dispersion↗
Mitigation of Angle Tracking Errors Due to Color Dependent Centroid Shifts in SIM-Lite
The SIM-Lite astrometric interferometer will search for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of nearby stars. In this search the interferometer will monitor the astrometric position of candidate stars relative to nearby reference stars over the course of a 5 year mission. The elemental measurement is the angle between a target star and a reference star. This is a two-step process, in which the interferometer will each time need to use its controllable optics to align the starlight in the two arms with each other and with the metrology beams. The sensor for this alignment is an angle tracking CCD camera. Various constraints in the design of the camera subject it to systematic alignment errors when observing a star of one spectrum compared with a start of a different spectrum. This effect is called a Color Dependent Centroid Shift (CDCS) and has been studied extensively with SIM-Lite's SCDU testbed. Here we describe results from the simulation and testing of this error in the SCDU testbed, as well as effective ways that it can be reduced to acceptable levels.
Spectral↗
The Micro-Arcsecond Metrology Testbed
The Micro-Arcsecond Metrology (MAM) testbed is a ground-based system of optical and electronic equipment for testing components, systems, and engineering concepts for the Space Interferometer Mission (SIM) and similar future missions, in which optical interferometers will be operated in outer space. In addition, the MAM testbed is of interest in its own right as a highly precise metrological system. The designs of the SIM interferometer and the MAM testbed reflect a requirement to measure both the position of the starlight central fringe and the change in the internal optical path of the interferometer with sufficient spatial resolution to generate astrometric data with angular resolution at the microarcsecond level. The internal path is to be measured by use of a small metrological laser beam of 1,319-nm wavelength, whereas the position of the starlight fringe is to be estimated by use of a charge-coupled-device (CCD) image detector sampling a large concentric annular beam. For the SIM to succeed, the optical path length determined from the interferometer fringes must be tracked by the metrological subsystem to within tens of picometers, through all operational motions of an interferometer delay line and siderostats. The purpose of the experiments performed on the MAM testbed is to demonstrate this agreement in a large-scale simulation that includes a substantial portion of the system in the planned configuration for operation in outer space. A major challenge in this endeavor is to align the metrological beam with the starlight beam in order to maintain consistency between the metrological and starlight subsystems at the system level. The MAM testbed includes an optical interferometer with a white light source, all major optical components of a stellar interferometer, and heterodyne metrological sensors. The aforementioned subsystems are installed in a large vacuum chamber in order to suppress atmospheric and thermal disturbances. The MAM is divided into two distinct subsystems: the test article (TA), which is the interferometer proper, and the inverse interferometer pseudo-star (IIPS), which synthesizes the light coming from a distant target star by providing spatially coherent wavefronts out of two mirrors, separated by the MAM baseline, that feed directly into two siderostats that are parts of the TA. The two feed mirrors of the IIPS are articulated (in translation and tilt) in order to simulate stars located at different orientations in space, while still illuminating the TA siderostats. The spectrum of the simulated starlight of the IIPS corresponds to that of a blackbody at a temperature of about 3,100 K.
Goullioud, Renaud↗