Deborah F. Woods (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Ronak Shah (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Julie Johnson (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Alexander Szabo (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Eric C. Pearce (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Richard Lambour (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), Walter Faccenda (MIT Lincoln Laboratory)
Keywords: Novel Approaches, SSA Sensing, Electro-Optical
Abstract:
The Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is a DARPA-funded technology initiative to dramatically increase sensitivity to microsatellites at the geosynchronous belt and to improve cataloging of the deep space resident space object (RSO) population. The SST achieves increased sensitivity to faint objects and rapid search capabilities by combining a large 3.5-meter aperture Mersenne-Schmidt telescope design and a highly sensitive curved mosaic focal surface CCD camera. While the unique system design is advantageous for space surveillance capabilities, it presents a challenge to alignment due to an inherently small depth of focus and the additional degrees of freedom introduced with a powered tertiary mirror. This paper will provide a brief overview of the SST, discuss the methodology for achieving and maintaining focus and alignment of the system across a range of temperature and elevation conditions, and present recent results of the system alignment performance. This work is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under Air Force Contract #FA8721-05-C-0002. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the United States Government. Distribution Statement A: Distribution is Unlimited
Date of Conference: September 11-14, 2012
Track: Novel Approaches to Electro-optical SSA Sensing