NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Extra-Solar Planetary Imager (ESPI) for Space Based Jovian Planetary DetectionWe report on out Extra-Solar Planetary Imager (ESPI) study for a recent Midex (NASA Medium Class Explorer Mission) proposal. Proposed for ESPI was a 1.5 x 1.5 square meter Jacquinot apodized square aperture telescope. The combination of apodization and a square aperture telescope significantly reduces the diffracted light from a bright central source over much of the telescope focal plane. As a result, observations of very faint astronomical objects next to bright sources with angular separations as small as 0.32 arcseconds become possible. This permits a sensitive search for exo-planets in reflected light. The system is capable of detecting a Jupiter-like planet in a relatively long-period orbit around as many as 160 to 175 stars with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 5 in observations lasting maximally 100 hours per star. We discuss the effects of wavefront error, mirror speckle, pointing error and signal-to-noise issues, as well as the scalability of our ESPI study with respect to NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission.
Document ID
20030053376
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Lyon, Rick G.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Melnick, Gary J.
Nisenson, Peter
Papaliolios, Costa
Ridgeway, Steve
Friedman, Edward
Gezari, Dan Y.
Harwit, Martin
Graf, Paul
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2002
Subject Category
Astronomy
Meeting Information
Meeting: SPIE Astronomical Telescope and Instrumentation Conference
Location: Kona, HI
Country: United States
Start Date: August 22, 2002
End Date: August 28, 2002
Sponsors: International Society for Optical Engineering
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available