ULTRA ULTRA-STABLE TELESCOPE RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS IS A PROPOSAL FOCUSED ON A SYSTEM ENGINEERING STUDY FOR A SEGMENTED 10M OBSERVATORY WITH A HIGH CONTRAST CORONAGRAPH APPLICABLE FOR THE HABEX AND LUVOIR MISSIONS. THE KEY OUTPUTS OF THIS STUDY WILL INCLUDE ANALYSIS OF ARCHITECTURE TRADES IDENTIFICATION OF TECHNOLOGY GAPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PATHS FORWARD FOR TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ALL BASED ON MODELING TOOLS AND ENGINEERING WORK VALIDATED ON THE WORLDS ONLY OPTICAL DEPLOYABLE SEGMENTED SPACE TELESCOPE THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE JWST. THE EFFORT WILL USE CAPABILITIES AND TECHNIQUES DEVELOPED FOR CORONAGRAPH AND SEGMENTED TELESCOPES TO COMPLETE AN ARCHITECTURE STUDY AND END TO END SIMULATION OF DIRECT IMAGING OBSERVING SCENARIOS COMPRISING A FULL OBSERVATORY SIMULATION. THE STUDY INCLUDES AN ERROR BUDGET BASED ASSESSMENT AND AN ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVES FOR TECHNOLOGY PATHS OF THE FUTURE. IMPORTANTLY ULTRA TAKES ADVANTAGE OF MORE THAN 20 PLUS YEARS OF INDUSTRIAL AND UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE IN ANALYTICAL MODELING AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT APPLIED TO EXOPLANET DIRECT IMAGING OBSERVATIONS WITH THE GOAL OF INCREASING THE TRL OF ULTRA-STABLE TELESCOPE ARCHITECTURES UNDER CONSIDERATION BY THE HABEX AND LUVOIR MISSION STUDY TEAMS IN PREPARATION FOR THE 2020 ASTROPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY.
$1,179,021FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
Bae Systems Space & Mission Systems Inc.