Lt. Col. Travis Blake, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Tactical Technology Office), E. Pearce, J. A. Gregory, A. Smith, R. Lambour, R. Shah, D. Woods, W. Faccenda, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory), S. Sundbeck, (Schafer Corporation TMD), M. Bolden, (CENTRA Technology, Inc.)
Keywords: Curved Focal Surface Array
Abstract:
Wide field of view optical telescopes have a range for uses in both the astronomical and space surveillance purposes. In designing these systems, a number of factors must be taken into account and design trades accomplished to best balance the performance and cost of the system to meet various program constraints. One design trade that has been discussed of the past decade is the curving of the digital focal surface array to meet the field curvature versus the utilization of optical elements to flatten the field curvature for a more traditional focal plane array. For the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) 3.5m Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) the choice was made to curve the array to best satisfy the stressing telescope performance parameters, along with programmatic challenges. The results of this design choice led to a system that meets all of the initial program goals and stands ready to dramatically improve the nations space surveillance capabilities. This paper will discuss the implementation of the curved focal surface array, the performance achieved by the array and the delta cost difference in the curved array versus a typical flat array.
Date of Conference: September 10-13, 2013
Track: Featured