Euclid is a part of the European Space Agency Cosmic Vision Medium Class program. This mission's goal is to investigate the nature of dark energy, dark matter and gravity by observing the geometry of the Universe and the formation of structures over cosmological timescales. Euclid Payload Module (PLM) includes a large three mirrors anastigmatic Korsch telescope feeding a visible imager (VIS) and a near-infrared spectrometer and photometer (NISP). The hardware of all of them will be mainly made of Boostec ® SiC material. The SiC telescope has been designed by Airbus Defence and Space team in Toulouse (France). The PLM is divided in two cavities which are separated and hold by a very large SiC baseplate; the front one includes the primary and secondary mirrors and the associated support structure while the back one consists of the telescope folding mirrors, the tertiary mirror, the two instruments (VIS and NISP) and other optical devices. The focal length is 24.5 m and the useful pupil diameter is 1.2 m. A passive thermal concept has been developed, thus requiring minimum heating power and providing best thermal stability. The telescope will operate at ≈130 K. In addition to its high thermal conductivity, the Boostec ® SiC has been chosen for its mechanical properties and its ability to greatly reduce mass. The full SiC telescope architecture gives high optical stability. The present paper describes the very large full-SiC telescope and the manufacturing process of its SiC parts, in particular the mirrors, the lightweight baseplate and the spider.
METimage is an advanced multispectral radiometer for weather and climate forecasting developed by Airbus Defence & Space under the auspices of the German Space Administration (DLR) for the EUMETSAT Polar System-Second Generation (EPS-SG). The instrument is equipped with a continuously rotating scan mirror with a 1.7s period followed by a static telescope. The scan mirror permits an extended Earth view of 108° per revolution and regular views to on-board calibration sources. A derotator assembly, which is half-speed synchronised with the scanner, is inserted in the optical beam after the telescope to compensate the image rotation in the focal plane. The derotator optical arrangement is a fivemirror concept that minimises the polarisation sensitivity. The derotator design is constrained by optical performance, mass and compactness, which led to the selection of a full silicon carbide (SiC) concept. This paper describes the preliminary design and verification approach of the derotator optics.
To be launched in 2022, MicroCarb is a space mission project of the French Space Agency (CNES) that will measure the exchange of carbon dioxide present in the Earth's atmosphere over all regions of the globe, particularly in areas poorly covered by terrestrial instrumentation. It will be the first European mission entirely dedicated to CO2 measurement. Airbus Defence and Space has been selected by CNES to design, develop and qualify the MicroCarb instrument able to monitor very precisely CO2 concentrations, with an accuracy better than 1 part per million. It is an infrared passive spectrometer operating in four spectral bands and including a unique imaging channel. To meet the need for unprecedented stability, Airbus Defence and Space turned to a full-SiC solution for the mirrors and the structural elements of the instrument. These optics are embarked on the Myriades microsat platform which allocates them a low volume. This led the designers to squeeze the instruments into a compact volume and thus to design complex three-dimensional structures and also to implement mirrors of high freeform amplitudes. The present paper presents the manufacturing approach for such highly complex silicon carbide (SiC) parts, especially the grinding of complex interfaces and very precise freeform mirror blanks ready for polishing.
METimage is an advanced multispectral radiometer for weather and climate forecasting developed by Airbus Defence & Space under the auspices of the German Space Administration (DLR) for the EUMETSAT Polar System -Second Generation (EPS-SG). The instrument is equipped with a continuously rotating scan mirror with a 1.7s period followed by a static telescope. The scan mirror permits an extended Earth view of 108° per revolution and regular views to on-board calibration sources. A derotator assembly, which is half-speed synchronised with the scanner, is inserted in the optical beam after the telescope to compensate the image rotation in the focal plane. The derotator optical arrangement is a fivemirror concept that minimises the polarisation sensitivity. The derotator design is constrained by optical performance, mass and compactness, which led to the selection of a full silicon carbide (SiC) concept. This paper is presented as a continuation of the ICSO 2018 paper to describe the detailed design and early physical model results of the derotator optics.
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