Starshade Technology Development: Deployment Accuracy & Thermoelastic Stability of Key Structures
No abstract provided
Willems, Phil↗
Engineering topics
Willems, Phil
Publications and source records attributed to Willems, Phil.
Demonstration of Deployment Accuracy of the Starshade Inner Disk Subsystem
We present experimental results that demonstrate the required in-plane deployment accuracy of the starshade Inner Disk Subsystem (IDS). This effort was to address Milestone 7C of the Starshade Technology Activity S5, which requires that the in-plane deployment accuracy of the petal interfaces on the IDS be within +/-300um. A full-scale 10m-diameter IDS prototype was constructed. This prototype comprised a medium-fidelity perimeter truss, medium-fidelity spokes, and a low-fidelity optical shield (OS). The testbed also included gravity compensation systems and a laser tracker metrology system. The post-processed measurement uncertainties of the laser tracker were less than 30um at the 3 sigma level. Design, engineering and fabrication of these components was done by JPL, Tendeg, and Roccor. Testing was performed at the Tendeg facility in Louisville, Colorado. The IDS prototype was deployed 22 times and the locations of petal interfaces on the IDS were measured after each deployment. Based on this data, tolerance intervals were calculated that would contain 99.73% of future deployment accuracy errors with 90% confidence. These tolerance intervals are conservative estimates for 3 sigma bounds. The tolerance intervals for the three pertinent error components were found to be within the required allocations, with at least 19% margin.
Turse, Dana↗
The NEID Precision Radial Velocity Spectrometer: Port Adapter Overview, Requirements, and Test Plan
The NEID spectrometer is an optical (380-930 nm), fiber-fed, precision Doppler spectrometer currently in development for the WIYN 3.5 m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory as part of the NN-EXPLORE partnership. Designed to achieve a radial velocity precision of < 30 cm/s, NEID will be sensitive enough to detect terrestrial-mass exoplanets around low-mass stars. Light from the target stars is focused by the telescope to a bent Cassegrain port at the edge of the primary mirror mechanical support. The specialized NEID "Port Adapter" system is mounted at this bent Cassegrain port and is responsible for delivering the incident light from the telescope to the NEID fibers. In order to provide stable, high-quality images to the science instrument, the Port Adapter houses several sub-components designed to acquire the target stars, correct for atmospheric dispersion, stabilize the light onto the science fibers, and calibrate the spectrometer by injecting known wavelength sources such as a laser frequency comb. Here we provide an overview of the overall opto-mechanical design and system requirements of the Port Adapter. We also describe the development of system error budgets and testplans to meet those requirements.
Cassegrain port↗