Wide-field high-performance geosynchronous imaging
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Mail Code 551, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (United States)
The NASA Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) Program and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are sponsoring the Advanced Geosynchronous Studies (AGS) to develop technologies and system concepts for Earth observation from geosynchronous orbit. This series of studies is intended to benefit both MTPE science and the NOAA GOES Program. Within the AGS program, advanced imager trade studies have investigated two candidate concepts for near-term advanced geosynchronous imagers. One concept uses a scan mirror to direct the line of sight from a 3-axis stabilized platform. Another eliminates the need for a scan mirror by using an agile spacecraft bus to scan the entire instrument. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the optical design trades and system issues encountered in evaluating the two scanning approaches. The imager design started with a look at first principles: what is the most efficient way to image the Earth in those numerous spectral bands of interest to MTPE scientists and NOAA weather forecasters. Optical design trades included rotating filter wheels and dispersive grating instruments. The design converged on a bandpass filter instrument using four focal planes to cover the spectral range 0.45 to 13.0 micrometers. The first imager design uses a small agile spacecraft supporting an afocal optical telescope. Dichroic beamsplitters feed refractive objectives to four focal planes. The detectors are a series of long linear and rectangular arrays which are scanned in a raster fashion over the 17 degree Earth image. The use of the spacecraft attitude control system to raster the imager field-of-view (FOV) back and forth over the Earth eliminates the need for a scan mirror. However, the price paid is significant energy and time required to reverse the spacecraft slew motions at the end of each scan line. Hence, it is desired to minimize the number of scan lines needed to cover the full Earth disk. This desire, coupled with the ground coverage requirements, drives the telescope design to a 1.6 degree square FOV to provide full Earth disk coverage in less than 12 swaths. The telescope design to accommodate the FOV and image quality requirements is a 30 cm aperture three-element off-axis anastigmat. The size and mass of the imager instrument that result from this optical configuration are larger than desired. But spacecraft reaction wheel torque and power requirements to raster the imager FOV are achievable using existing spacecraft technology. However, launch mass and cost are higher than desired. In the second high-level trade study, the AGS imager team is looking at incorporating a scan mirror and having the satellite three-axis stabilized. The use of the scan mirror eliminates the long turn-around times of the spacecraft scanning approach, allowing for faster Earth coverage. Thus the field of view of the afocal telescope can be reduced by half while still satisfying ground coverage requirements. The optical design of the reduced field afocal telescope is being studied to shrink its size and improve its performance. Both a three-mirror Cassegrain afocal and a two-mirror pair of confocal paraboloids are being considered. With either telescope, the size, mass, and power requirements of this imager are significantly less than those of the first imager design. Both imager designs appear to be feasible and both meet envisioned MTPE and NOAA geosynchronous imaging needs. The AGS imager team is continuing to explore the optical trade space to further optimize imager designs.
- OSTI ID:
- 21179693
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 420, Issue 1; Conference: STAIF-1998: Space technology and applications international forum - 1998, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 25-29 Jan 1998; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.54875; (c) 1998 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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