Terrestrial Planet Finder interferometer: architecture, mission design, and technology development

This overview paper is a progress report about the system design and technology development of two interferometer concepts studied for the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) project. The two concepts are a structurally-connected interferometer (SCI) intended to fulfill minimum TPF science goals and a formation-flying interferometer (FFI) intended to fulfill full science goals. Described are major trades, analyses, and technology experiments completed. Near term plans are also described. This paper covers progress since August 2003 and serves as an update to a paper presented at that month's SPIE conference, "Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets."

[1]  David Fischer,et al.  Current status of the TPF formation flying interferometer concept , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[2]  Eric E. Bloemhof,et al.  Integrated modeling approach for the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) mission , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[3]  G. Serabyn,et al.  Comparison of high dynamic range near-neighbor detection approaches for TPF , 2002, Proceedings, IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[4]  C. Fridlund,et al.  The Darwin mission , 2002 .

[5]  Robert F. Boyle,et al.  NASA advanced cryocooler technology development program , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[6]  Gautam Vasisht,et al.  A cryogenic Mid-IR nuller for TPF , 2004 .

[7]  Charley Noecker,et al.  StarLight mission: a formation-flying stellar interferometer , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[8]  Gautam Vasisht,et al.  Mid-IR interferometric nulling for TPF , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[9]  Oliver P. Lay,et al.  Nulling interferometers: the importance of systematic errors and the X-array configuration , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[10]  Daniel R. Coulter.  NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder missions , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[11]  Chris Lindensmith,et al.  Selected Mission Architectures For The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF): Large, Medium, and Small , 2002, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[12]  Brent Ware,et al.  Modeling the TPF interferometer , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[13]  Oliver P. Lay,et al.  Architecture selection and optimization for planet-finding interferometers , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[14]  Stuart B. Shaklan,et al.  Scope and objective of the Terrestrial Planet Finder coronagraph study , 2003 .

[15]  Mark R. Swain,et al.  Terrestrial Planet Finder cryogenic delay line development , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[16]  Eugene Serabyn,et al.  Scope and objectives of the Terrestrial Planet Finder interferometer study , 2003 .

[17]  Christian Lindensmith.  Terrestrial Planet Finder: technology development plans , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.