Thermoelastic Stability of Deployable Space Telescopes

Imagery collected from space provides very useful information about our planet. Today there are many Earth Observation satellites in orbit which allow us to collect information which is used for environmental monitoring, response to catastrophes, surveillance and security, urban planning, economic analysis and many other applications. Thus,...

Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/Stratospheric THz Observatory:: GUSTO

Gal/Xgal U/LDB Spectroscopic/ Stratospheric THz Observatory (GUSTO) is a NASA Explorers Mission of Opportunity that will make large scale maps of the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud in three important interstellar lines: [CII], [OI], and [NII] at 158, 63, and 205 μm, respectively. During its ~75 day stratospheric (~36 km) flight, GUSTO’s 0...

The search for living worlds and the connection to our cosmic origins

One of the most exciting scientific challenges is to detect Earth-like planets in the habitable zones of other stars in the galaxy and search for evidence of life. During the past 20 years the detection of exoplanets, orbiting stars beyond our own, has moved from science fiction to science fact. From the first handful of gas giants, found...

High spectral resolution multi-tone Spacecraft Doppler tracking software: Algorithms and implementations

We present a software package for single-dish data processing of spacecraft signals observed with VLBI-equipped radio telescopes. The Spacecraft Doppler tracking (SDtracker) software allows one to obtain topocentric frequency detections with a sub-Hz precision and reconstructed and residual phases of the carrier signal of any spacecraft or...

Peering into the dark (ages) with low-frequency space interferometers: Using the 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the infant universe to probe fundamental (Astro)physics

The Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn are largely unexplored windows on the infant Universe (z ~ 200–10). Observations of the redshifted 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen can provide valuable new insight into fundamental physics and astrophysics during these eras that no other probe can provide, and drives the design of many future ground-based...

Large format imaging spectrograph for the Large Submillimeter Telescope (LST)

We present a conceptual study of a large format imaging spectrograph for next-generation large (50-m class) single-dish telescopes, i.e., the Large Submillimeter Telescope (LST) and Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST). Recent discoveries of high-redshift star-forming galaxies at z=8-9 and candidate quiescent galaxies at z~6...

The deployable telescope: A cutting-edge solution for high spatial and temporal resolved Earth observation

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...

A Wideband Leaky Lens Antenna with Frequency-Stable Beams for DESHIMA Spectrometer

DESHIMA (Deep Spectroscopic High-redshift Mapper) is an instrument aiming at efficiently making spectroscopic redshift measurements of sub-mm wave galaxies (SMGs), thereby providing about the formation and the evolution of stars and galaxies. The aim of this work is to provide a preliminary study into the design of a wideband leaky lens antenna...

Fish-Eye Observing with Phased Array Radio Telescopes

The radio astronomical community is currently developing and building several new radio telescopes based on phased array technology. These telescopes provide a large field-of-view, that may in principle span a full hemisphere. This makes calibration and imaging very challenging tasks due to the complex source structures and direction dependent...

Optimum synthetic-aperture imaging of extended astronomical objects

In optical aperture-synthesis imaging of stellar objects, different beam combination strategies are used and proposed. Coaxial Michelson interferometers are very common and a homothetic multiaxial interferometer is recently realized in the Large Binocular Telescope. Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the working principles of two new...

Optimal control strategy to reduce the temporal wavefront error in AO systems

An Adaptive Optics (AO) system for astronomy is analysed from a control point of view. The focus is put on the temporal error. The AO controller is identified as a feedback regulator system, operating in closed-loop with the aim of rejecting wavefront disturbances. Limitations on the performance of feedback regulator systems are discussed. The...

Mechanical setup for optical aperture synthesis for wide field imaging

Homothetic mapping is a technique that combines the images from several telescopes so that it looks like as though they came form a single large telescope. This technique enables a much wider interferometric field of image than current techniques can provide. To investigate the feasibility, a research testbed is build know as Delft Testbed...