Title
Gaia basic angle monitoring system
Author
Gielesen, W.L.M.
de Bruijn, D.
van den Dool, T.C.
Kamphues, F.G.
Mekking, J.
Calvel, B.
Laborie, A.
Coatantiec, C.
Touzeau, S.
Erdmann, M.
Gare, P.
Monteiro, D.
Publication year
2013
Abstract
The Gaia mission will create an extraordinarily precise three-dimensional map of more than one billion stars in our Galaxy. The Gaia spacecraft2, built by EADS Astrium, is part of ESA's Cosmic Vision programme and scheduled for launch in 2013. Gaia measures the position, distance and motion of stars with an accuracy of 24 micro-arcsec using two telescopes at a fixed mutual angle of 106.5°, named the ‘Basic Angle’, at an operational temperature of 100 K. This accuracy requires ultra-high stability at cryogenic conditions, which can only be achieved by using Silicon Carbide for both the optical bench and the telescopes. TNO has developed, built and space qualified the Silicon carbide Basic Angle Monitoring (BAM) on-board metrology system3 for this mission, measuring the relative motion of Gaia’s telescopes with accuracies in the range of 0.5 micro-arcsec. This is achieved by a system of two laser interferometers able to detect Optical Path Differences (OPD) as small as 1.5 picometer rms. Following a general introduction on Gaia and the use of Silicon Carbide as base material this paper addresses the specific challenges towards the cryogenic application of the Gaia BAM including design, integration and verification/qualification by testing.
Subject
Gaia
Opto-mechanics
Picometer
Metrology
Stability
Silicon Carbide
Cryogenic
Space qualification
High Tech Systems & Materials
Industrial Innovation
Physics & Electronics
SSE - Space Systems Engineering
TS - Technical Sciences
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TNO identifier
481176
Publisher
SPIE, Bellingham, WA
ISBN
9780819497130
ISSN
0277-786X
Source
Cryogenic Optical Systems and Instruments 2013, 29 August 2013, San Diego, CA, USA, 8863 (8863)
Series
Proceedings of SPIE
Document type
conference paper