The Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT) I: overview and air-side system description

Hicks, Brian; Lyon, Richard G.; Petrone, Peter; Ballard, Marlin; Bolcar, Matthew R.; Bolognese, J.; Clampin, Mark; Dogoda, Peter; Dworzanski, Daniel; Helmbrecht, Michael A.; Koca, Corina; Shiri, Ron

doi:10.1117/12.2234313

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(21 reference statements)

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“…In support of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program and the Technology Demonstration for Exoplanet Missions (TDEM) 1 component of NASA's Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) program, the Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is being coupled with an actively-controlled macro scale segmented primary mirror via a fine pointing system (FPS) to form the Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT). 2,3 SAINT is being developed as an end-to-end coronagraphic system to demonstrate high-contrast imaging in the presence of complex diffraction and environmental instabilities with traceability to future large space telescopes having coronagraphic high-contrast imaging capability. This TDEM-13 program's final Milestone (MS 3) objective comprises holding a contrast of 10 −8 at an inner working angle (IWA) of 4λ/D within a bandpass of ∆λ = 20nm centered near 633nm for 1,000 seconds on three separate occasions, with a goal of 10 −9 at an IWA of 3λ/D over a ∆λ = 40nm bandpass.…”

Section: Project Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

The segmented aperture interferometric nulling testbed (SAINT) III: control systems analysis and preliminary results

Hicks

Jahoda

Petrone

et al. 2018

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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This work presents a detailed current performance analysis for the telescope, pointing, and coronagraph component subsystems of the Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT). The project pairs an active segmented mirror with the Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC) towards demonstrating capabilities for the future space observatories needed to directly detect and characterize Earth-sized worlds around nearby stars. We describe approaches to optimize subsystem wavefront sensing and control parameters, summarizing relevant scaling relations between these parameters, residual errors, and observed contrast measurements. Preliminary results from diagnostic testing under various control states are presented along with intermediate contrast measurements towards demonstrating the full system.

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Section: Project Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

The segmented aperture interferometric nulling testbed (SAINT) III: control systems analysis and preliminary results

Hicks

Jahoda

Petrone

et al. 2018

Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave

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“…Visible Nuller Coronagraph (VNC) technology is advancing through a TDEM-13 (PI Hicks). 56 A TDEM-14 (PI Bendek) is investigating a concept combining precision astrometry and a Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization (PIAA) coronagraph to be able to determine the planet mass as well as performing spectroscopy. TDEM awards aimed at advancing deformable mirror technology through environmental testing will continue (PI Helmbrecht TDEM-10 and PI Bierden TDEM-10).…”

Section: Satmentioning

confidence: 99%

Space technology for directly imaging and characterizing exo-Earths

Crill

Siegler

2017

UV/Optical/IR Space Telescopes and Instruments: Innovative Technologies and Concepts VIII

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The detection of Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars, and their spectroscopic characterization in a search for biosignatures, requires starlight suppression that exceeds the current best ground-based performance by orders of magnitude. The required planet/star brightness ratio of order 10 −10 at visible wavelengths can be obtained by blocking stellar photons with an occulter, either externally (a starshade) or internally (a coronagraph) to the telescope system, and managing diffracted starlight, so as to directly image the exoplanet in reflected starlight. Coronagraph instruments require advancement in telescope aperture (either monolithic or segmented), aperture obscurations (obscured by secondary mirror and its support struts), and wavefront error sensitivity (e.g. line-of-sight jitter, telescope vibration, polarization). The starshade, which has never been used in a science application, benefits a mission by being decoupled from the telescope, allowing a loosening of telescope stability requirements. In doing so, it transfers the difficult technology from the telescope system to a large deployable structure (tens of meters to greater than 100 m in diameter) that must be positioned precisely at a distance of tens of thousands of kilometers from the telescope. We describe in this paper a roadmap to achieving the technological capability to search for biosignatures on an Earth-like exoplanet from a future space telescope. Two of these studies, HabEx and LUVOIR, include the direct imaging of Earth-sized habitable exoplanets as a central science theme.WFIRST, scheduled to launch in the mid-2020's, will provide an essential technology demonstration with a coronagraph instrument (CGI) that uses a deformable mirror to correct wavefront aberrations, the first to do so in space. Still in Phase A, the WFIRST mission has recently matured its coronagraph to TRL 5. The CGI is designed to achieve contrast sensitivities between 10 −8 and 10 −9 and to be the first instrument to directly image mature gas and ice giants like our own Jupiter and Neptune. This will be an important step across the gap from today's capability to the needs of a future mission (See Fig. 1).Additionally, at this time, the WFIRST project is studying the benefits and impacts of being compatible with a potential future starshade mission. While NASA does not yet have plans to initiate a starshade flight project, NASA is studying the scientific potential, cost, and risks of starshade-based observations with WFIRST. The recommendations of the 2020 Decadal Survey will guide NASA's decision on whether to initiate a starshade project.The Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Mission (HabEx), and Large Ultraviolet-Optical-Infrared Surveyor (LU-VOIR) mission concepts share Earth-like exoplanet characterization as a central science theme. These missions are being designed around the direct imaging of exoplanets and the telescope/spacecraft systems are being designed in concert with a coronagraph and/or starshade. These two mission concepts encapsulate...

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“…[8][9][10][11] New air-side system additions including a source collimator, telescope, periscope, and LOWFS feed optics have all been integrated and aligned, and the M1 segments have been coarse aligned to fall within the range of fine control rigid body PTT piezo actuators. 12 The remainder of this work presents updates on addressing a number of additional experiment needs identified in the VNC TDEM-10 Milestone #2 report 11 and TDEM-13 Milestone #3 whitepaper. 13 Modifications to the VNC breadboard described in Sec.…”

Section: Development Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT) II: component systems update

Hicks

Bolcar

Helmbrecht

et al. 2017

Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VIII

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This work presents updates to the coronagraph and telescope components of the Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT). The project pairs an actively-controlled macro-scale segmented mirror with the Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC) towards demonstrating capabilities for the future space observatories needed to directly detect and characterize a significant sample of Earth-sized worlds around nearby stars in the quest for identifying those which may be habitable and possibly harbor life. Efforts to improve the VNC wavefront control optics and mechanisms towards repeating narrowband results are described. A narrative is provided for the design of new optical components aimed at enabling broadband performance. Initial work with the hardware and software interface for controlling the segmented telescope mirror is also presented.

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The Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT) I: overview and air-side system description

Cited by 4 publications

References 17 publications

The segmented aperture interferometric nulling testbed (SAINT) III: control systems analysis and preliminary results

The segmented aperture interferometric nulling testbed (SAINT) III: control systems analysis and preliminary results

Space technology for directly imaging and characterizing exo-Earths

Segmented Aperture Interferometric Nulling Testbed (SAINT) II: component systems update

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