Summary: Optical and Mechanical Verification of an Exterior Occulter for Starlight Suppression

N. Kasdin/Princeton University

In help of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program and the Technology Development for Exoplanet Missions (TDEM) alternative, this proposal, our third within the TDEM program, describes the following important steps within the expertise development of an exterior occulter for starlight suppression. Our First TDEM demonstrated the viability of our petal design and manufacturing method, exhibiting {that a} petal might be made with the formed managed to an accuracy that meets the necessities for higher than 10(-10)distinction. Our second, and present TDEM, will present that our deployment method meets the necessities on deployed petal positioning. The already-demonstrated petal form efficiency,and soon-to-be demonstrated deployment efficiency, fulfill key components in expertise growth for exo-earth detection and characterization. Starshades can picture extrasolar earths within the liveable zone with out resorting to unique applied sciences and inserting extraordinary necessities on an area observatory.

For this third TDEM we return to the petal manufacturing and design to display that your complete petal system is at TRL 5. We suggest to once more construct a full-scale flight-like petal however now together with the important subsystems not thought-about final time: lodging for the launch restraint and deployment management, the thermal blanket, and the precision tip part. We may also take a look at a revised design that’s stiffer in aircraft, meant to eradicate the big low frequency bend we found in our first experiment. We may also embrace the sharp flight-like optical edges designed to cut back photo voltaic glint, leveraging work achieved at JPL over the past a number of years.

Our testing shall be extra complete as nicely. We will once more carry out precision metrology on the petal edges to point out {that a} starshade constructed to the identical accuracy achieves higher than 10(-10) distinction, this time earlier than and after a number of stow and deployment cycles. We may also carry out edge scatter checks to display the efficacy of the brand new optical edge design. We will carry out thermal checks of fabric coupon samples and petal substructures to confirm our thermal modeling. Finally, we are going to accompany these crucial petal system checks with upgraded laboratory optical verification checks at Princeton University to confirm the fashions used to substantiate efficiency.

These mixed efforts will carry the crucial starshade petal subsystem to TRL 5.

Strategic Astrophysics Technology
Solicitation: NNH12ZDA001N-SAT