Design and performance evaluation of sensors and actuators for advanced optical systems

Abstract

Current state-of-the-art commercial sensors and actuators do not meetmany of NASA's next generation spacecraft and instrument needs. Nor dothey satisfy the DoD needs for satellite missions, especially micro/nanosatellite missions. In an effort to develop advanced optical devices andinstruments that meet mission requirements, NASA Langley recentlycompleted construction of a new cleanroom housing equipment capable offabricating high performance active optic and adaptive optictechnologies including deformable mirrors, reconfigurable lenses (bothrefractive and diffractive), spectrometers, spectro-polarimeters,tunable filters and many other active optic devices. In addition toperformance, these advanced optic technologies offer advantages inspeed, size, weight, power consumption, and radiation tolerance. Theactive optic devices described in this paper rely on birefringent liquidcrystal materials to alter either the phase or the polarization of theincoming light. Design considerations and performance evaluation resultsfor various NASA applications are presented. Applications presented willinclude large space telescopes, optical communications, spacecraftwindows, coronagraphs, and star trackers.