The ESA GAIA mission: designing in silicon carbide and related issues
conference paper
TNO is developing the Basic Angle Monitoring Opto-Mechanical Assembly for the GAIA mission of ESA, a space telescope that will create a map of the universe including distant stars and planets. GAIA is being built by EADS Astrium and scheduled for launch in 2011. Due to its stability and hardness properties, Silicon Carbide has been chosen for the structure, payload mirrors and most components of GAIA. The Basic Angle Monitoring subsystem was developed by TNO and is a metrology system for monitoring the angle between the two GAIA telescopes. With the Basic Angle Monitoring an Optical Path Difference as small as 1.5 picometers RMS can be measured. During the design phase of the Basic Angle Monitoring subsystem, TNO also developed solutions for ultra stable mounting of non-Silicon Carbide optical components. These components have to withstand launch with preservation of the alignment and retain optical properties from ambient to 100 K in vacuum. The manufacturing of off-axis Silicon Carbide mirrors of the Basic Angle Monitoring down to nm-level represented another challenge. A comprehensive program was conducted on SiC manufacturing of freeform optics. Status: the Basic Angle Monitoring has past the Critical Design Review.
Topics
TNO Identifier
364452
ISBN
9781615679089
Source title
60th International Astronautical Congress 2009, IAC 2009, 12-16 October 2009, Daejeon, South Korea
Collation
8 p.
Pages
1246-1253
Files
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