ORCAS Keck Instrument Demonstrator

The Orbiting Configurable Artificial Star (ORCAS) mission in collaboration with the W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) have designed, assembled, built and delivered, within 180 days, ORKID (ORCAS Keck Instrument Demonstrator), an early visible-wavelength performance demonstration with the Keck II Adaptive Optics (AO) system. The optical performance of ORKID meets the technical requirements derived from science goals of having a Nyquist sampled point spread function (PSF) at 650 nm. This is achieved by diffraction-limited as-built performance with an RMS (root mean square) internal wavefront error below 50 nm, which is key for the advancement of the OR-CAS mission. ORKID has acquired, with a closed AO loop, no frame selection, while shifting and adding, the sharpest ever on-sky image captured at Keck II. With a FWHM of ∼ 15 mas, this is the equivalent of a 9 m diffraction-limited telescope. By doing so, the immense potential and viability of the proposed Hybrid observatory ORCAS mission is demonstrated.