Earth Observation from a High Orbit: Pushing the Limits with Synthetic Aperture Optics

Abstract : The resolution of a diffraction limited optical telescope is inversely proportional to its diameter; the latter is limited by the current technology to about 10 meters for ground-based systems, and even more limited by volume and mass constraints for space-based systems. Synthetic Aperture Optics (SAO) is a technique that allows the breaking of this limit; it consists in making an array of telescopes (or of mirrors) interfere, so that the data contains some high resolution information% at spatial frequencies given by the separation of the telescopes (or %baseline") rather than by their sizes. In this communication, we first briefly review the two types of SAO instruments (called "Michelson" and "Fizeau") and the possible types of beam combination, We then study the possibility of obtaining wide-field interferometric imaging for a Michelson instrument.

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