SIM-Lite: status of the engineering progress toward flight

Dekens, Frank; Bloemhof, E. E.; Dubovitsky, S.; Eldred, Daniel B.; Goullioud, Renaud; Jeganathan, Muthu; Nicaise, Fabien; Zhao, Feng

doi:10.1117/12.789828

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The test article contains all the essential components of the actual interferometer, including fringe detection, pathlength and pointing control, and internal metrology (An et al 2005). The testbed was in operation from 2002 through 2006 and has been of great value in identifying technical challenges, their mitigation, and demonstrating technical readiness (Goullioud & Bloemhof 2002;.…”

Section: Results From the Interferometer Testbedmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sub-Microarcsecond Astrometry with SIM-Lite: A Testbed-based Performance Assessment

Shao

Nemati

2009

PUBL ASTRON SOC PAC

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SIM-Lite is an astrometric interferometer being designed for sub-microarcsecond astrometry, with a wide range of applications from searches for Earth-analogs to determining the distribution of dark matter. SIM-Lite measurements can be limited by random and systematic errors, as well as astrophysical noise. In this paper we focus on instrument systematic errors and report results from SIM-Lite's interferometer testbed. We find that, for narrow-angle astrometry such as used for planet finding, the end-of-mission noise floor for SIM-Lite is below 0.035 µas.

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Section: Results From the Interferometer Testbedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SIM-Lite instrument is described in detail elsewhere (Goullioud et al 2008;Dekens 2008). The fundamental SIM-Lite instrument is its "science" interferometer, operating in the visible range with 50 cm collectors and a 6 m baseline.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sub-Microarcsecond Astrometry with SIM-Lite: A Testbed-based Performance Assessment

Shao

Nemati

2009

PUBL ASTRON SOC PAC

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“…These challenges range from nanometer-level control problems to picometer-level sensing problems [3]. Key testbeds and brass-board components have been designed, built, and tested during the technology development phase of SIM [4], resolving all the major technology challenges. Examples of such demonstrations include the System Test-Bed 3 [5], the Micro-Arc-second Metrology testbed [6], the Kite testbed [7], the Thermal-Opto-Mechanical testbed [8] and the Spectral Calibration development Unit [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overview of the SIM PlanetQuest Light mission concept

et al. 2008

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The Space Interferometry Mission PlanetQuest Light (or SIM-Lite) is a new concept for a space borne astrometric instrument, to be located in a solar Earth-trailing orbit. SIM-Lite utilizes technology developed over the past ten years for the SIM mission. The instrument consists of two Michelson stellar interferometers and a precision telescope. The first interferometer chops between the target star and a set of Reference stars. The second interferometer monitors the attitude of the instrument in the direction of the target star. The telescope monitors the attitude of the instrument in the other two directions.SIM-Lite will be capable of one micro-arc-second narrow angle astrometry on magnitude 6 or brighter stars, relative to magnitude 9 Reference stars in a two degree field. During the 5 year mission, SIM-Lite would search 65 nearby stars for planets of masses down to one Earth mass, in the Habitable Zone, which have orbit periods of less than 3 years. SIM-Lite will also perform global astrometry on a variety of astrophysics objects, reaching 4.5 micro-arc-seconds absolute position and parallax measurements. As a pointed instrument, SIM-Lite will be capable of achieving 8 micro-arc-second astrometric accuracy on 19th visual magnitude objects and 15 micro-arc-second astrometric accuracy on 20th visual magnitude objects after 100 hours of integration. This paper will describe the instrument, how it will do its astrometric measurements and the expected performance based on the current technology.

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