The low-order wavefront sensor for the PICTURE-C mission

Mendillo, Christopher B.; Brown, Joshua; Martel, Jason; Howe, Glenn A.; Hewawasam, Kuravi; Finn, Susanna C.; Cook, Timothy A.; Chakrabarti, Supriya; Douglas, Ewan S.; Mawet, Dimitri; Guyon, Olivier; Singh, Garima; Lozi, Julien; Cahoy, Kerri; Marinan, Anne

doi:10.1117/12.2188238

Cited by 12 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Low-order wavefront sensors: Plans include testing low-order wavefront sensing approaches including a reflective Lyot stop 19,20 and a Zernike wavefront sensor. 21 Scattered light: A field stop will be added to a focal plane between the Lyot stop and the science plane to limit scattered light at the science plane.…”

Section: Focal Plane Masksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The space coronagraph optical bench (SCoOB): 2. Wavefront sensing and control in a vacuum-compatible coronagraph testbed for spaceborne high-contrast imaging technology

Gorkom

Douglas²,

Ashcraft³

et al. 2022

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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The 2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics endorsed space-based high contrast imaging for the detection and characterization of habitable exoplanets as a key priority for the upcoming decade. To advance the maturity of starlight suppression techniques in a space-like environment, we are developing the Space Coronagraph Optical Bench (SCoOB) at the University of Arizona, a new thermal vacuum (TVAC) testbed based on the Coronagraphic Debris Exoplanet Exploring Payload (CDEEP), a SmallSat mission concept for high contrast imaging of circumstellar disks in scattered light. When completed, the testbed will combine a vector vortex coronagraph (VVC) with a Kilo-C microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) deformable mirror from Boston Micromachines Corp (BMC) and a self-coherent camera (SCC) with a goal of raw contrast surpassing 10 −8 at visible wavelengths. In this proceedings, we report on our wavefront sensing and control efforts on this testbed in air, including the as-built performance of the optical system and the implementation of algorithms for focalplane wavefront control and digging dark holes (regions of high contrast in the focal plane) using electric field conjugation (EFC) and related algorithms.

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Section: Focal Plane Masksmentioning

confidence: 99%

The space coronagraph optical bench (SCoOB): 2. Wavefront sensing and control in a vacuum-compatible coronagraph testbed for spaceborne high-contrast imaging technology

Gorkom

Douglas²,

Ashcraft³

et al. 2022

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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“…This flight successfully demonstrated key technologies for exoplanetary direct imaging missions and all hardware components for the second, science-focused, flight of PICTURE-C scheduled for the fall of 2020. These technologies include a vector vortex coronagraph, a high-speed low-order wavefront control system, [37][38][39] and the DM controller described here with a BMC Kilo DM.…”

Section: Picture C Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microelectromechanical deformable mirror development for high-contrast imaging, part 1: miniaturized, flight-capable control electronics

Bendek,

Ruane,

Prada

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Deformable mirrors (DMs) are a critical technology to enable coronagraphic direct imaging of exoplanets with current and planned ground-and space-based telescopes as well as future mission concepts, such as the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) and the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR). The latter concepts aim to image exoplanet types ranging from gas giants to Earth analogs. This places several requirements on the DMs such as requires a large actuator count ( 3,000), fine surface height resolution ( 10 pm), and radiation hardened driving electronics with low mass and volume. In this paper, we present the design and testing of a flight-capable, miniaturized DM controller. Having achieved contrasts on the order of 5×10 −9 on a coronagraph testbed in vacuum in the High Contrast Imaging Testbed (HCIT) facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), we demonstrate that the electronics are capable of meeting the requirements of future coronagraph-equipped space telescopes. We also report on functionality testing on-board the high-altitude balloon experiment "Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment -Coronagraph (PICTURE-C)," which aims to directly image debris disks and exozodiacal dust around nearby stars. The controller is designed for the Boston Micromachines Corporation Kilo-DM and is readily scalable to larger DM formats. The three main components of the system (the DM, driving electronics, and mechanical and heat management) are designed to be compact and have low-power consumption to enable its use not only on exoplanet missions, but also in a wide-range of applications that require precision optical systems, such as direct line-of-sight laser communications. The controller is capable of handling 1,024 actuators with 220 V maximum dynamic range, 16-bit resolution, 14-bit accuracy, and 1 kHz operating frequency. The system fits in a 10×10×5 cm 3 volume, weighs less than 0.5 kg, and consumes less than 8 W. We have developed a turnkey solution reducing the risk for future missions, lowering their cost by significantly reducing volume, weight, and power consumption of the wavefront control hardware.

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“…Coronagraph designs, such as WFIRST-Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) and the HabEx VVC use rejected starlight from a reflective focal plane mask at the center of the field to feed a ZWFS. Other designs use reflected light from the Lyot stop (Singh et al 2015;Mendillo et al 2015). For an LGS with precision station keeping (Sec.…”

Section: Other Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laser Guide Star for Large Segmented-aperture Space Telescopes. I. Implications for Terrestrial Exoplanet Detection and Observatory Stability

Douglas¹,

Males²,

Clark³

et al. 2019

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Precision wavefront control on future segmented-aperture space telescopes presents significant challenges, particularly in the context of high-contrast exoplanet direct imaging. We present a new wavefront control architecture that translates the ground-based artificial guide star concept to space with a laser source aboard a second spacecraft, formation flying within the telescope field-of-view. We describe the motivating problem of mirror segment motion and develop wavefront sensing requirements as a function of guide star magnitude and segment motion power spectrum. Several sample cases with different values for transmitter power, pointing jitter, and wavelength are presented to illustrate the advantages and challenges of having a non-stellar-magnitude noise limited wavefront sensor for space telescopes. These notional designs allow increased control authority, potentially relaxing spacecraft stability requirements by two orders of magnitude, and increasing terrestrial exoplanet discovery space by allowing high-contrast observations of stars of arbitrary brightness.

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The low-order wavefront sensor for the PICTURE-C mission

Cited by 12 publications

References 7 publications

The space coronagraph optical bench (SCoOB): 2. Wavefront sensing and control in a vacuum-compatible coronagraph testbed for spaceborne high-contrast imaging technology

The space coronagraph optical bench (SCoOB): 2. Wavefront sensing and control in a vacuum-compatible coronagraph testbed for spaceborne high-contrast imaging technology

Microelectromechanical deformable mirror development for high-contrast imaging, part 1: miniaturized, flight-capable control electronics

Laser Guide Star for Large Segmented-aperture Space Telescopes. I. Implications for Terrestrial Exoplanet Detection and Observatory Stability

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