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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2007

Optical Design of Telescopes and other Reflective Systems using SLIDERS

Optical design tools are presented to provide automatic generation of reflective optical systems for design studies and educational use. The tools are graphical in nature and use an interactive slider interface with freely available optical design software, OSLO EDU. Operation of the sliders provides input to adjust first-order and other system parameters (e.g. focal length), while appropriate system construction parameters are automatically updated to correct aberrations. Graphical output is also presented in real-time (e.g. a lens drawing) to provide the opportunity for a truly visual approach to optical design. Available systems include two- three- and four-mirror telescopes, relays, and afocal systems, either rotationally symmetric or having just a plane of symmetry. Demonstrations are presented, including a brief discussion of interfacing optical design software to MATLAB, and general research opportunities at NASA.

Howard, Joseph M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Lunar transit telescope lander design

The Program Development group at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has been involved in studying the feasibility of placing a 16 meter telescope on the lunar surface to scan the skies using visible/ Ultraviolet/ Infrared light frequencies. The precursor telescope is now called the TRANSIT LUNAR TELESCOPE (LTT). The Program Development Group at Marshall Space Flight Center has been given the task of developing the basic concepts and providing a feasibility study on building such a telescope. The telescope should be simple with minimum weight and volume to fit into one of the available launch vehicles. The preliminary launch date is set for 2005. A study was done to determine the launch vehicle to be used to deliver the telescope to the lunar surface. The TITAN IV/Centaur system was chosen. The engineering challenge was to design the largest possible telescope to fit into the TITAN IV/Centaur launch system. The telescope will be comprised of the primary, secondary and tertiary mirrors and their supporting system in addition to the lander that will land the telescope on the lunar surface and will also serve as the telescope's base. The lunar lander should be designed integrally with the telescope in order to minimize its weight, thus allowing more weight for the telescope and its support components. The objective of this study were to design a lander that meets all the constraints of the launching system. The basic constraints of the TITAN IV/Centaur system are given.

Omar, Husam A.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Lunar transit telescope lander design

The Program Development group at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has been involved in studying the feasibility of placing a 16 meter telescope on the lunar surface to scan the skies using visible/ Ultraviolet/ Infrared light frequencies. The precursor telescope is now called the TRANSIT LUNAR TELESCOPE (LTT). The Program Development Group at Marshall Space Flight Center has been given the task of developing the basic concepts and providing a feasibility study on building such a telescope. The telescope should be simple with minimum weight and volume to fit into one of the available launch vehicles. The preliminary launch date is set for 2005. A study was done to determine the launch vehicle to be used to deliver the telescope to the lunar surface. The TITAN IV/Centaur system was chosen. The engineering challenge was to design the largest possible telescope to fit into the TITAN IV/Centaur launch system. The telescope will be comprised of the primary, secondary and tertiary mirrors and their supporting system in addition to the lander that will land the telescope on the lunar surface and will also serve as the telescope's base. The lunar lander should be designed integrally with the telescope in order to minimize its weight, thus allowing more weight for the telescope and its support components. The objective of this study were to design a lander that meets all the constraints of the launching system. The basic constraints of the TITAN IV/Centaur system are given.

Omar, Husam A.↗
NASA NTRS2023

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission: Optical Telescope Element Design, Development, and Performance

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared space telescope that has recently started its science program which will enable breakthroughs in astrophysics and planetary science. Notably, JWST will provide the very first observations of the earliest luminous objects in the universe and start a new era of exoplanet atmospheric characterization. This transformative science is enabled by a 6.6 m telescope that is passively cooled with a 5 layer sunshield. The primary mirror is comprised of 18 controllable, low areal density hexagonal segments, that were aligned and phased relative to each other in orbit using innovative image-based wave front sensing and control algorithms. This revolutionary telescope took more than two decades to develop with a widely distributed team across engineering disciplines. We present an overview of the telescope requirements, architecture, development, superb on-orbit performance, and lessons learned. JWST successfully demonstrates a segmented aperture space telescope and establishes a path to building even larger space telescopes.

Infrared observatories↗
NASA NTRS1987

Baffle design for telescopes with tiltable secondary mirrors

A procedure is presented for the design of primary and secondary baffles (light shields) for telescopes with tiltable secondary mirrors (typically for use in the infrared). The procedure is applied to the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) for which results are presented.

Davis, Paul K.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Dynamic Stability Finite Element Analysis of Multiple Potential Large Space Telescope Structural Designs

One of the driving structural requirements of the Habitable Exo-Planet telescope is to maintain line of sight stability between the primary and secondary mirror of ≤ 5 milli-arc seconds. Dynamic analyses of two configurations of a proposed Habitable Exo-Planet 4 meter off-axis telescope structure were performed to predict effects of a vibration input on primary/secondary mirror alignment. The dynamic disturbance used as the forcing function was the James Webb Space Telescope reaction wheel assembly vibration emission specification level. The objective of these analyses was to predict order-of-magnitude performance for various structural configurations which contribute to efforts in defining the Habitable Exo-Planet structural design’s global architecture. Two variations of the basic architectural design were analyzed. Relative motion between the PM and the SM for each design configuration are reported.

jitter↗
NASA NTRS2004

Spitzer Space Telescope mission design

This paper gives a description of the mission design, launch, orbit, and navigation results for the Spitzer space telescope mission. The Spitzer telescope was launched by the Delta II Heavy launch vehicle into a heliocentric Earth trailing orbit. This orbit is flown for the first time and will be used by several future astronomical missions such as Kepler, SIM, and LISA. This paper describes the launch strategy for a winter versus a summer launch and how it affects communications. It also describes how the solar orbit affects the design and operations of the Observatory. It describes the actual launch timeline, launch vehicle flight performance, and the long term behavior of the as flown orbit. It also provides the orbit knowledge from in-flight navigation data.

Mission Design↗
NASA NTRS2019

Benchmarking Simulations of the Compton Spectrometer and Imager with Calibrations

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a balloon-borne 𝛾-ray (0.2-5 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources. COSI employs a compact Compton telescope design utilizing 12 high-purity germanium double-sided strip detectors and is inherently sensitive to polarization. In 2016, COSI was launched from Wanaka, New Zealand and completed a successful 46-day flight on NASA’s new Super Pressure Balloon. In order to perform imaging, spectral, and polarization analysis of the sources observed during the 2016 flight, we compute the detector response from well-benchmarked simulations. As required for accurate simulations of the instrument, we have built a comprehensive mass model of the instrument and developed a detailed detector effects engine which applies the intrinsic detector performance to Monte Carlo simulations. The simulated detector effects include energy, position, and timing resolution, thresholds, dead strips, charge sharing, charge loss, crosstalk, dead time, and detector trigger conditions. After including these effects, the simulations closely resemble the measurements, the standard analysis pipeline used for measurements can also be applied to the simulations, and the responses computed from the simulations are accurate. We have computed the systematic error that we must apply to measured fluxes at certain energies, which is 6.3% on a rage. Here we describe the detector effects engine and the benchmarking tests performed with calibrations.

Sleator, Clio C.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Far Field Phase Patterns

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) for the detection of Gravitational Waves is a very long baseline interferometer, which will measure the changes in the distance of a five million kilometer arm to picometer accuracies. Knowledge of the phase deviations from a spherical wave and what causes these deviations are needed considerations in (as a minimum) the design of the telescope and in determining pointing requirements. Here we will present the far field phase deviations from a spherical wave for given Zernike aberrations of the exit pupil and discuss how these results affect the choice of a telescope design.

Waluschka, Eugene↗
NASA NTRS2007

High-Resolution, Wide-Field-of-View Scanning Telescope

A proposed telescope would afford high resolution over a narrow field of view (<0.10 ) while scanning over a total field of view nominally 16 wide without need to slew the entire massive telescope structure. The telescope design enables resolution of a 1-m-wide object in a 50- km-wide area of the surface of the Earth as part of a 200-km-wide area field of view monitored from an orbit at an altitude of 700 km. The conceptual design of this telescope could also be adapted to other applications both terrestrial and extraterrestrial in which there are requirements for telescopes that afford both wide- and narrow-field capabilities. In the proposed telescope, the scanning would be effected according to a principle similar to that of the Arecibo radio telescope, in which the primary mirror is stationary with respect to the ground and a receiver is moved across the focal surface of the primary mirror. The proposed telescope would comprise (1) a large spherical primary mirror that would afford high resolution over a narrow field of view and (2) a small displaceable optical relay segment that would be pivoted about the center of an aperture stop to effect the required scanning (see figure). Taken together, both comprise a scanning narrow-angle telescope that does not require slewing the telescope structure. In normal operation, the massive telescope structure would stare at a fixed location on the ground. The inner moveable relay optic would be pivoted to scan the narrower field of view over the wider one, making it possible to retain a fixed telescope orientation, while obtaining high-resolution images over multiple target areas during an interval of 3 to 4 minutes in the intended orbit. The pivoting relay segment of the narrow-angle telescope would include refractive and reflective optical elements, including two aspherical mirrors, to counteract the spherical aberration of the primary mirror. Overall, the combination of the primary mirror and the smaller relay optic would provide narrow-angle, diffraction-limited high resolution at a wavelength of 500 nm.

Sepulveda, Cesar↗
NASA NTRS2019

In Space Assembled Telescope (ISAT) Study Preliminary Findings

“When is it advantageous to assemble telescopes in space rather than deploying them from launch vehicle fairings”? This question forms the crux of the objectives of a NASA study we have been conducting in collaboration with colleagues from different NASA centers, industry and academia. In this study, we have engaged a broad cross section of experts from the various fields of optics engineering, that is, telescope design and instrument design, structure and thermal engineering, robotics, launch system engineering, orbital mechanics, integration and testing, astrophysics, and NASA programmatics among others. Initial efforts began with a quick review of the current state of art of the component technologies that contribute towards an in-space assembled telescope. Then, leveraging the collective expertise of the diverse group of experts, we formulated a reference telescope design and attempted to develop a baseline approach to modularize the telescope into components amenable for robotic assembly. The group identified different trades associated with modularization and also developed a set of criteria to discern between the different options as revealed by the trades. Based on the modularization of the telescope, we will assess the impact of various launch vehicles, orbits for assembly and operation, robotic systems and operational approaches, and other related variables. From this, a concept to assemble the reference telescope in space from modular components will be developed. Based on this concept, and definition of the modules, we will develop a mission lifecycle plan for an assembled telescope over different phases of preliminary design, detailed design, assembly-test-and-integration, and in space operations. The mission lifecycle plan will be used to evaluate cost and risk implications of in-space assembly toward answering our fundamental question of the advantages, if any, of assembling a telescope in space as compared to self-deployment. In this paper, we summarize the objectives of the study, a review of the status of the underlying component technologies, a description of the methodology, including three different multi-day technical interchange meetings (TIMs), summary of findings from the TIMs and other related activities. In addition, a detailed description of the various factors that impact in-space assembly, their interplay and criteria for discerning among them, a preliminary description of the life cycle plan, including the test and integration plan, and initial observations on cost and risk implications will be included in the paper.

Mukherjee, Rudranarayan↗
NASA NTRS2017

Habitable Exoplanet Imager Optical Telescope Concept Design

The Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx) is one of four missions under study for the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey. Its goal is to directly image and spectroscopically characterize planetary systems in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. Additionally, HabEx will perform a broad range of general astrophysics science enabled by 100 to 2500 nm spectral range and 3 x 3 arc-minute FOV. Critical to achieving the HabEx science goals is a large, ultra-stable UV/Optical/Near-IR (UVOIR) telescope. The baseline HabEx telescope is a 4-meter off-axis unobscured three-mirror-anastigmatic, diffraction limited at 400 nm with wavefront stability on the order of a few 10s of picometers. This paper summarizes the opto-mechanical design of the HabEx baseline optical telescope assembly, including a discussion of how science requirements drive the telescope's specifications, and presents analysis that the baseline telescope structure meets its specified tolerances.

mirror↗
NASA NTRS2018

Overview and Performance Prediction of the Baseline 4-Meter Telescope Concept Design for the Habitable-Zone Exoplanet Observatory

The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory Mission (HabEx) is one of four missions under study for the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey. Its goal is to directly image and spectroscopically characterize planetary systems in the habitable zone around nearby sun-like stars. Additionally, HabEx will perform a broad range of general astrophysics science enabled by 100 to 2500 nm spectral range and 3 x 3 arc-minute FOV. Critical to achieving the HabEx science goals is a large, ultra-stable UV/Optical/Near-IR (UVOIR) telescope. The baseline HabEx telescope is a 4-meter off-axis unobscured three-mirror-anastigmatic, diffraction limited at 400 nm with wavefront stability on the order of a few 10s of picometers. This paper summarizes the opto-mechanical design of the HabEx baseline optical telescope assembly, including a discussion of how science requirements drive the telescope's specifications, and presents analysis that the baseline telescope structure meets its specified tolerances.

Space Mirror Technology↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

LISA EDU Status

LISA will be the first space-based gravitational wave observatory, enabling orders of magnitude greater sensitivity than the state-of-the-art LIGO facility. L3Harris is developing an engineering development unit (EDU) telescope in support of NASA, ESA and the LISA Consortium. The LISA EDU telescope validates a flight-like telescope design and reduces risks associated with stability, materials, assembly, integration, and testing. Mission requirements are unlike any other and require picometer-level stability across the entire telescope’s beam path, even in the presence of temperature variation and jitter. As a result, an all-glass telescope design was developed. The brittle structure represents a new state of the art for stable telescopes, but also introduces challenges with managing assembly, manufacturability, and survivability. From 2019-2024, the LISA EDU project has increased manufacturing readiness and technology readiness for the optical telescope element.

Brian VanRensselaer↗
NASA NTRS2011

Telescope Spacer Design Investigations

Space-based interferometric gravitational wave observatories will measure changes in the distance between free falling proof masses inside widely separated spacecraft with pm sensitivity. These observatories will use fast telescopes to exchange laser beams. These telescopes are part of the probed optical distances and any length change in the gravitational wave band between secondary and primary can limit the sensitivity of the observatories. Furthermore, the large distance between and space constrains on the spacecraft require to use very fast telescopes with f-numbers approaching unity. These telescopes are very sensitive against any absolute length change which would reduce interferometer visibility and, ultimately, sensitivity. Our group has assembled a Silicon Carbide test structure and investigated its dimensional in the 1 OA-4 to 1 Hz frequency band at different operating temperatures. We also measured the overall length change and started investigating asymmetric length changes during cool down which would lead to misalignments in the telescope.

Livas, Jeffrey↗