The detection and quantification of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in particular carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), is presently one of the main goals of remote sensing of atmospheric gasses on a global scale, for the strong impact these molecules have on climate change. Of particular urgency is the quantification of emissions from anthropogenic sources, a high-priority task addressed by the ESA Copernicus mission CO2M, which will provide global coverage detection of CO2 and CH4. The observation of CO2M, capable of quantifying emissions from the major sources, can be complemented by other observation systems addressing the smaller, and more numerous, sources. In this domain, static interferometers can offer several advantages. This paper reports on the main results of two activities completed within the ESA Future Missions activities in the Earth Observation Program, for the development of small instruments based on static interferometer designs, for the detection of CO2. The two studies, named Carbon-HIGS and Carbon-CGI, investigated two instruments operating in the SWIR and NIR bands, with a targeted precision of 2 ppm and an accuracy of 1 ppm for CO2 atmospheric concentration, covering a relatively small swath of 50 km at a spatial sampling better than 300 m. We summarize the general detection principles, the result of the design activities, and the estimated instrument performances. Both concepts are suitable candidates to work in conjunction with the Copernicus mission offering a zoom-mode observation, for quantification of medium-sized GHG sources and improved localization and understanding of anthropogenic emissions. Additional presentation content can be accessed on the supplemental content page.
The paper presents the results of the 2021 CarbonCGI project, specified by ESA Future Earth Observation department, dedicated to high-resolution observations of GHG (Greenhouse Gas) with CGI (Compact Gas Imager). CarbonCGI aims at detecting and characterizing faint anthropogenic emissions of Carbon dioxide and Methane gas, from low orbit satellite to complement and extend CO2M mission [1]. CGI are developed in an integrated team of scientists and engineers involved in the framework of CarbonCGI project, the IRT (Research and Technological Institute) NS3 (New Space Small Sensor) project and the scientific activities of the industrial chair TRACE [2]. Compact Gas Imagers developments cover the atmospheric transport inverse modelling (level 4), the radiative transfer modelling (level 2), the simulation of acquisition chain, data correction, registration and calibration, as well as detailed design of sensor and critical components (level 0-1).
Thales Alenia Space has designed and developed space high performance observation instruments for more than 40 years. The future missions will have to deal with better performance, better optical quality while from affordability point of view, the total mass, the development schedule and the final cost have to be reduced. These constraints induce an innovative generation of solutions based on larger entrance optics associated to high lightweight ratio. In these conditions, the enhancement of the final performance can only be guaranteed by using active optics in flight. In this context, Thales Alenia Space has been selected by French National Space Agency (CNES) to develop an active optics full scale telescope to path the way for the new class of Extremely high resolution telescopes. The whole building blocks have been already tested and qualified over the last 4 years. So, a deformable mirror is implemented in the future large telescopes in order to correct manufacturing residues, ground/flight evolution including gravity. Moreover, low mass and high agility satellites require more compact designs which implies telescope solutions more sensitive to misalignments. An active positioning mechanism is then also needed in order to correct the telescope alignment during flight conditions. A wavefront sensor is implemented in the mission focal plane and the global active loop validated. This paper presents the validation of active optic telescope on a full scale Engineering Model of 1500mm of entrance pupil diameter. All the active optic building blocks already qualified are mounted on this demonstrator. This Engineering model has followed a complete integration and alignment process that confirms the breakthrough simplification expected. The test plan validates on a full scale model the wave-front correction algorithms on-ground and in flight conditions, ensuring the best performance achievable with the telescope all along the lifetime.
Thales Alenia Space is designing and developing space observation instruments since more than 40 years. This paper explains why active optics is needed for next generation of instruments for Earth observation. It describes what kind of solution is preferred and gives an overview of the development status on the associated technologies. Indeed, the future missions will have to deal with better performance, better optical quality while from manufacturing point of view, the total mass, the development schedule and the final cost have to be reduced. These constraints induce a new generation of solutions based on large entrance optics associated to high lightweight ratio which naturally provide solutions sensitive to gravity deformation. In these conditions, the enhancement of the final performance can only be guaranteed by using active optics in flight. A deformable mirror is therefore foreseen to be implemented in future large telescopes in order to correct manufacturing residues and ground/flight evolution, including gravity. Moreover, low mass and low cost require more compact designs which entail solutions more sensitive to misalignment. An active positioning mechanism is then also needed in order to correct the telescope alignment during operation conditions. Thales Alenia Space has been selected by CNES to develop and qualify active optics building blocks and then to test and demonstrate the improvement that new active technologies can bring in a full size instrument representative of the next generation of observation instruments. An overview of the current development status and the achieved performances is given for each building block (Primary Mirror, deformable mirror, 6-dof mechanism, wavefront sensor).
KEYWORDS: Astronomical imaging, Active optics, Space telescopes, Disk lasers, Wavefront sensors, Telescopes, Relays, Device simulation, Cameras, Control systems
The next generation of large lightweight space telescopes will require the use of active optics systems to enhance the performance and increase the spatial resolution. Since almost 10 years now, LAM, CNES, THALES and ONERA conjugate their experience and efforts for the development of space active optics through the validation of key technological building blocks: correcting devices, metrology components and control strategies. This article presents the work done so far on active correcting mirrors and wave front sensing, as well as all the facilities implemented. The last part of this paper focuses on the merging of the MADRAS and RASCASSE test-set up. This unique combination will provide to the active optics community an automated, flexible and versatile facility able to feed and characterise space active optics components.
Earth-imaging or Universe Science satellites are always in need of higher spatial resolutions, in order to discern finer and finer details in images. This means that every new generation of satellites must have a larger main mirror than the previous one, because of the diffraction. Since it allows the use of larger mirrors, active optics is presently studied for the next generation of satellites. To measure the aberrations of such an active telescope, the Shack-Hartmann (SH), and the phase-diversity (PD) are the two wavefront sensors (WFS) considered preferentially because they are able to work with an extended source like the Earth's surface, as well as point sources like stars.
The RASCASSE project was commissioned by the French spatial agency (CNES) to study the SH and PD sensors for high-performance wavefront sensing. It involved ONERA and Thales Alenia Space (TAS), and LAM. Papers by TAS and LAM on the same project are available in this conference, too [1,2].
The purpose of our work at ONERA was to explore what the best performance both wavefront sensors can achieve in a space optics context. So we first performed a theoretical study in order to identify the main sources of errors and quantify them — then we validated those results experimentally.
The outline of this paper follows this approach: we first discuss phase diversity theoretical results, then Shack-Hartmann’s, then experimental results — to finally conclude on each sensor’s performance, and compare their weak and strong points.
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Space telescopes, Stars, Wavefront sensors, Astronomical imaging, Active optics, Signal to noise ratio, Device simulation, Telescopes, Numerical simulations
The payloads for Earth Observation and Universe Science are currently based on very stiff opto-mechanical structures with very tight tolerances. The introduction of active optics in such an instrument would relax the constraints on the thermo-mechanical architecture and on the mirrors polishing. A reduction of the global mass/cost of the telescope is therefore expected. Active optics is based on two key-components: the wave-front sensor and the wave-front corrector.
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