Error budgeting and tolerancing of starshades for exoplanet detection

Stuart B. Shaklan; M. Charley Noecker; Tiffany Glassman; Amy S. Lo; Philip J. Dumont; N. Jeremy Kasdin; Eric J. Cady; Robert Vanderbei; Peter R. Lawson

doi:10.1117/12.857591

6 August 2010 Error budgeting and tolerancing of starshades for exoplanet detection

Stuart B. Shaklan, M. Charley Noecker, Tiffany Glassman, Amy S. Lo, Philip J. Dumont, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Eric J. Cady, Robert Vanderbei, Peter R. Lawson

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7731, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 77312G (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857591
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

A flower-like starshade positioned between a star and a space telescope is an attractive option for blocking the starlight to reveal the faint reflected light of an orbiting Earth-like planet. Planet light passes around the petals and directly enters the telescope where it is seen along with a background of scattered light due to starshade imperfections. We list the major perturbations that are expected to impact the performance of a starshade system and show that independent models at NGAS and JPL yield nearly identical optical sensitivities. We give the major sensitivities in the image plane for a design consisting of a 34-m diameter starshade, and a 2-m diameter telescope separated by 39,000 km, operating between 0.25 and 0.55 um. These sensitivities include individual petal and global shape terms evaluated at the inner working angle. Following a discussion of the combination of individual perturbation terms, we then present an error budget that is consistent with detection of an Earth-like planet 26 magnitudes fainter than its host star.

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Stuart B. Shaklan, M. Charley Noecker, Tiffany Glassman, Amy S. Lo, Philip J. Dumont, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Eric J. Cady, Robert Vanderbei, and Peter R. Lawson "Error budgeting and tolerancing of starshades for exoplanet detection", Proc. SPIE 7731, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 77312G (6 August 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857591

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