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In 2016 the first MROI telescope was delivered and deployed at Magdalena Ridge in the maintenance facility. Having undergone initial check-out and fitting the system with optics and a fast tip-tilt system, we eagerly anticipate installing the telescope enclosure in 2018. The telescope and enclosure will be integrated at the facility and moved to the center of the interferometric array by late summer of 2018 with a demonstration of the performance of an entire beamline from telescope to beam combiner table shortly thereafter. At this point, deploying two more telescopes and demonstrating fringe-tracking, bootstrapping and limiting magnitudes for the facility will prove the full promise of MROI. A complete status update of all subsystems follows in the paper, as well as discussions of potential collaborative initiatives.
All-in-one combination with this large number of beams is problematic for both technical and fundamental physical reasons. We propose instead to use a number of smaller beam combiners, each of which combines a subset of telescopes together at any given time. This requires an "optical switchyard" which is able to switch permutations of beams between different combiners while maintaining alignment in the tilts and pistons of the beams.
We describe here the design for the switchyard for MROI. The design has a low-angle-of-incidence geometry which allows high optical throughput and polarisation fidelity. We describe the criteria driving the design at both the geometric and mechanical level and explain how these are met using our proposed implementation.
The global needs for Space Situational Awareness (SSA) have moved to the forefront in many communities as Space becomes a more integral part of a national security portfolio. These needs drive imaging capabilities ultimately to a few tens of centimeter resolution at geosynchronous orbits. Any array capable of producing images on faint and complex geosynchronous objects in just a few hours will be outstanding not only as an astrophysical tool, but also for these types of SSA missions. With the recent infusion of new funding from the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Albuquerque, NM, MROI will be able to attain first light, first fringes, and demonstrate bootstrapping with three telescopes by 2020.
MROI’s current status along with a sketch of our activities over the coming 5 years will be presented, as well as clear opportunities to collaborate on various aspects of the facility as it comes online. Further funding is actively being sought to accelerate the capability of the array for interferometric imaging on a short time-scale so as to achieve the original goals of this ambitious facility
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1) Measure the system PSF or the aberrated image.
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