Lokheed

Scientists at Lockheed Martin are exploring ways to build smaller sized telescopes by using an imaging technology called Segmented Planar Imaging Detector for Electro-optical Reconnaissance (SPIDER).

With the technology, researchers aim to reduce the size, weight and power of the telescopes used by satellites to capture images, by ten to 100 times.

Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center senior research scientist Danielle Wuchenich said: "We can only scale the size and weight of telescopes so much before it becomes impractical to launch them into orbit and beyond.

"Besides, the way our eye works is not the only way to process images from the world around us."

The satellites currently in space require big telescopes to determine and capture images of far away objects, which is why bigger telescopes are being installed on satellites.

However, installing a big sized telescope on a satellite can sometimes completely take over the entire satellite system and raises the overall cost of the system.

In order to reduce the size of the future telescopes, researchers at Lockheed are developing a new method of processing space images with the help of a new technology called interferometry.

"We can only scale the size and weight of telescopes so much before it becomes impractical to launch them into orbit and beyond."

The technology receives any objects than can be seen, photons, using a thin array of tiny lenses, which replaces the large, bulky lenses used in traditional telescopes.

Huge numbers of interferometer arrays, situated in observatories worldwide, are used to gather data over long periods of time to form ultra-high resolution images of objects in space.

SPIDER changes the concept from space, and through the operation of big telescopes and combining optics for hundreds or thousands of tiny lenses that feed silicon-chip photonic integrated circuits (PICs) to combine light in pairs to form interference fringes.

The amplitude and phase of the fringes are measured and used to create a digital image and a high resolution one.

Photonic integrated circuits of SPIDER do not need the complex, precision alignment of large lenses and mirrors. The technology can produce thin-disk shaped telescopes instead of existing cylindrical shaped telescopes, which means less risk on orbit.

It can also be rearranged into various configurations that can offer flexible placement options on its host.

Telescopes are cylindrical, although SPIDER could begin a new era of different thin-disk shapes, from squares to hexagons and conformal concepts.

Lockheed Martin senior fellow Alan Duncan said: "What is new is the ability to build interferometer arrays that have the same number of channels as a digital camera.

"They can take a snapshot, process it and there is your image.

"It is basically treating interferometer arrays like a point-and-shoot camera."

The company expects to bring changes for commercial and government satellites with SPIDER.


Image: SPIDER can produce thin-disk shaped telescopes instead of existing cylindrical shaped telescopes. Photo: courtesy of Lockheed Martin.