Optical Design of CubeSat Reflecting Telescope

  • Published : 2014.10.13

Abstract

The optics of Space telescope is one of the major parts of space mission used for imaging observation of astronomical targets and the Earth. These kinds of space mission have a bulky and complex opto-mechanics with a long optical tube, but there are attempts have been made to observe a target with a small satellite in many ways. In this paper, we describe an optical design of a reflecting telescope for use in a CubeSat mission. For this design, we adopt the off-axis segmented method of astronomical observation techniques based on the Ritchey-Chr$\acute{e}$tien type telescope. The primary mirror shape is a rectangle with dimensions of $8cm{\times}8cm$, and a secondary mirror has dimensions of $2.4cm{\times}4.1cm$. The focal ratio is 3 which can obtain a $0.3{\times}0.2$ degree diagonal angle in a $1280{\times}800$ CMOS color image sensor with a pixel size of $3{\mu}m{\times}3{\mu}m$. This optical design can capture a ${\sim}4km{\times}{\sim}2.3km$ area of the earth's surface at 700 km altitude operation. Based on this conceptual design, we will keep trying to study more for astronomical observation with Attitude control system.

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