Space telescope design to directly image the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri

Eduardo A. Bendek; Ruslan Belikov; Julien Lozi; Sandrine Thomas; Jared Males; Sasha Weston; Michael McElwain

doi:10.1117/12.2188999

16 September 2015 Space telescope design to directly image the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri

Eduardo A. Bendek, Ruslan Belikov, Julien Lozi, Sandrine Thomas, Jared Males, Sasha Weston, Michael McElwain

Proceedings Volume 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII; 960516 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2188999
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The scientific interest in directly imaging and identifying Earth-like planets within the Habitable Zone (HZ) around nearby stars is driving the design of specialized direct imaging missions such as ACESAT, EXO-C, EXO-S and AFTA-C. The inner edge of Alpha Cen A and B Habitable Zone is found at exceptionally large angular separations of 0.7” and 0.4” respectively. This enables direct imaging of the system with a 0.3m class telescope. Contrast ratios on the order of 10¹⁰ are needed to image Earth-brightness planets. Low-resolution (5-band) spectra of all planets may allow establishing the presence and amount of an atmosphere. This star system configuration is optimal for a specialized small, and stable space telescope that can achieve high-contrast but has limited resolution. This paper describes an innovative instrument design and a mission concept based on a full Silicon Carbide off-axis telescope, which has a Phase Induced Amplitude Apodization coronagraph embedded in the telescope. This architecture maximizes stability and throughput. A Multi-Star Wave Front algorithm is implemented to drive a deformable mirror controlling simultaneously diffracted light from the on-axis and binary companion star. The instrument has a Focal Plane Occulter to reject starlight into a highprecision pointing control camera. Finally we utilize a Orbital Differential Imaging (ODI) post-processing method that takes advantage of a highly stable environment (Earth-trailing orbit) and a continuous sequence of images spanning 2 years, to reduce the final noise floor in post processing to ~2e-11 levels, enabling high confidence and at least 90% completeness detections of Earth-like planets.

Citation Download Citation

Eduardo A. Bendek, Ruslan Belikov, Julien Lozi, Sandrine Thomas, Jared Males, Sasha Weston, and Michael McElwain "Space telescope design to directly image the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri", Proc. SPIE 9605, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VII, 960516 (16 September 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2188999

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