The ATC prototype, called Star-9 - because of the number and arrangement of its apertures - uses multiple small telescopes that yield the same resolution as a much larger single aperture instrument.

This distributed-aperture imaging approach provides a new path to affordable high resolution, LM said in a news release, by packaging the modules in a smaller envelope thus reducing the size, weight and cost of the system.

The ability of a telescope to resolve fine detail is a direct function of its light-gathering power. Larger apertures - mirrors or lenses - gather more light and provide greater resolution of detail.

Multiple apertures, however, provide a multi-functional capability unavailable with a single mirror. A distributed-aperture approach could be incorporated in space-based remote sensing instruments that might use individual telescope modules, or groups of modules, to view a scene at several different wavelengths or polarizations simultaneously.

Software can reconfigure the system on subsequent orbits to make completely different sets of observations. It also can group some of the separate apertures as a sub-array to image multiple objects on a single pass.

The Star-9 telescope could easily serve as the imaging front end for an entire suite of space-based instruments, the LM release said.

In addition, the technology provides redundancy, reliability and thus lower-risk, because a failure in a monolithic mirror system could doom a mission, while the loss of a single aperture in a multiple-aperture system can be overcome by reconfiguring the system.

The ATC has been conducting Star-9 performance demonstrations using off-the-shelf focal planes, electronics and mirror actuators.

The experiments show clearly, the LM release said, "that high-quality imagery can be acquired over a useful field of view for an Earth-imaging or an astronomical-distributed-aperture imaging system."

"The key to making a distributed aperture optical system work is to properly phase the individual modules. Phasing means that all telescopes present an equal path length, to tolerances considerably less than the wavelength of light," said Peter Dean, the Star-9 program manager at the ATC.

"We have demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of this approach with the Star-9 test bed and quantified performance with subsequent test bed activities," Dean added.

Related Links
Lockheed Martin