End-to-end simulation of high-contrast imaging systems: methods and results for the PICTURE mission family
Name
96051A.pdf
Size
706.44 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
86734a11d5cf8f91f5905bf654d64f99
Author(s)
Douglas, Ewan S.
Hewawasam, Kuravi
Mendillo, Christopher B.
Cook, Timothy A.
Finn, Susanna C.
Howe, Glenn A.
Kuchner, Marc J.
Lewis, Nikole K.
Mawet, Dimitri
Chakrabarti, Supriya
Date Issued
August 2015
Journal
Proceedings Volume 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII;
Publisher
SPIE
Citation
Douglas, Ewan S. et al. “End-to-End Simulation of High-Contrast Imaging Systems: Methods and Results for the PICTURE Mission Family.” Proceedings Volume 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII, 9-13 August, 2015, San Diego, California, edited by Stuart Shaklan, 96051A, SPIE, 2015. © 2015 SPIE
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We describe a set of numerical approaches to modeling the performance of space flight high-contrast imaging payloads. Mission design for high-contrast imaging requires numerical wavefront error propagation to ensure accurate component specifications. For constructed instruments, wavelength and angle-dependent throughput and contrast models allow detailed simulations of science observations, allowing mission planners to select the most productive science targets. The PICTURE family of missions seek to quantify the optical brightness of scattered light from extrasolar debris disks via several high-contrast imaging techniques: sounding rocket (the Planet Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Rocket Experiment) and balloon flights of a visible nulling coronagraph, as well as a balloon flight of a vector vortex coronagraph (the Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment-Coronagraph, PICTURE-C). The rocket mission employs an on-axis 0.5m Gregorian telescope, while the balloon flights will share an unobstructed off-axis 0.6m Gregorian. This work details the flexible approach to polychromatic, end-to-end physical optics simulations used for both the balloon vector vortex coronagraph and rocket visible nulling coronagraph missions. We show the preliminary PICTURE-C telescope and vector vortex coronagraph design will achieve 10 -8 contrast without post-processing as limited by realistic optics, but not considering polarization or low-order errors. Simulated science observations of the predicted warm ring around Epsilon Eridani illustrate the performance of both missions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2187262
