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Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator

Wide field-of-view imaging optics offer a huge potential for space-based Earth observation enabling the capture of global data. Reflective imaging telescopes are often favored, as they do not show chromatic aberrations and are less susceptible to radiation darkening than their refractive counterpart...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Schifano, Luca, Vervaeke, Michael, Rosseel, Dries, Verbaenen, Jef, Thienpont, Hugo, Dewitte, Steven, Berghmans, Francis, Smeesters, Lien
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9654826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36365926
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22218233
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author Schifano, Luca
Vervaeke, Michael
Rosseel, Dries
Verbaenen, Jef
Thienpont, Hugo
Dewitte, Steven
Berghmans, Francis
Smeesters, Lien
author_facet Schifano, Luca
Vervaeke, Michael
Rosseel, Dries
Verbaenen, Jef
Thienpont, Hugo
Dewitte, Steven
Berghmans, Francis
Smeesters, Lien
author_sort Schifano, Luca
collection PubMed
description Wide field-of-view imaging optics offer a huge potential for space-based Earth observation enabling the capture of global data. Reflective imaging telescopes are often favored, as they do not show chromatic aberrations and are less susceptible to radiation darkening than their refractive counterparts. However, the main drawback of reflective telescopes is that they are limited with respect to field-of-view while featuring large dimensions. We propose the use of freeform optics to maximize the field of view while maintaining diffraction-limited image quality and minimizing system dimensions. In this paper, we present a novel freeform wide field-of-view reflective telescope, starting from the optical design, and continuing to tolerancing analysis and manufacture, towards a proof-of-concept demonstrator. The novel telescope features a full field-of-view of 120° while showing an exceptional spatial resolution of 2.6 km and fitting within 1 CubeSat unit. To the best of our knowledge, this is the widest field-of-view that has ever been realized for a space-based telescope, nearly reaching Earth observation from limb to limb from an altitude of about 700 km. We hope this design paves the way for future space missions enabling improved Earth observation and leading to enhanced monitoring of climate and climate change.
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spelling pubmed-96548262022-11-15 Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator Schifano, Luca Vervaeke, Michael Rosseel, Dries Verbaenen, Jef Thienpont, Hugo Dewitte, Steven Berghmans, Francis Smeesters, Lien Sensors (Basel) Article Wide field-of-view imaging optics offer a huge potential for space-based Earth observation enabling the capture of global data. Reflective imaging telescopes are often favored, as they do not show chromatic aberrations and are less susceptible to radiation darkening than their refractive counterparts. However, the main drawback of reflective telescopes is that they are limited with respect to field-of-view while featuring large dimensions. We propose the use of freeform optics to maximize the field of view while maintaining diffraction-limited image quality and minimizing system dimensions. In this paper, we present a novel freeform wide field-of-view reflective telescope, starting from the optical design, and continuing to tolerancing analysis and manufacture, towards a proof-of-concept demonstrator. The novel telescope features a full field-of-view of 120° while showing an exceptional spatial resolution of 2.6 km and fitting within 1 CubeSat unit. To the best of our knowledge, this is the widest field-of-view that has ever been realized for a space-based telescope, nearly reaching Earth observation from limb to limb from an altitude of about 700 km. We hope this design paves the way for future space missions enabling improved Earth observation and leading to enhanced monitoring of climate and climate change. MDPI 2022-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9654826/ /pubmed/36365926 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22218233 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schifano, Luca
Vervaeke, Michael
Rosseel, Dries
Verbaenen, Jef
Thienpont, Hugo
Dewitte, Steven
Berghmans, Francis
Smeesters, Lien
Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title_full Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title_fullStr Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title_full_unstemmed Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title_short Freeform Wide Field-of-View Spaceborne Imaging Telescope: From Design to Demonstrator
title_sort freeform wide field-of-view spaceborne imaging telescope: from design to demonstrator
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9654826/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36365926
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22218233
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