Development of a high-performance optical system for small satellites

Abstract

Funded by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy of Korea, Satrec Initiative has initiated the development of the prototype model of a TMA-based electro-optical system as part of the national space research and development program. Its optical aperture diameter is 120 mm, the effective focal length is 462 mm, and its full field-of-view is 5.08 degrees. The dimension is about 600mm x 400mm x 400mm and its weight is less than 15 kg. To demonstrate its performance and versatility, hyper-spectral imaging using a linear spectral filter was chosen as the application of the prototype. The spectral resolution will be less than 10 nm and the number of channels will be more than 40 in visible and near-infrared region. In this paper, the progress made so far on the prototype development and the future plan will be presented. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.