Presentation + Paper
30 September 2022 Development and test of 3-mirror freeform telescope for Earth remote sensing applications
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
As the next generation of Earth science programs demand more spectral bands, larger fields of view, faster speeds and reduced size, the optical designer will need to adapt to these new requirements. With the advent of manufacturable freeform optical surfaces, compact high-performance optical systems utilizing these surfaces are becoming practical. Freeform optics provide additional degrees of freedom for the optical designer which allow for more compact optical systems of equal performance, potentially operating at faster speeds or over wider fields of view. While numerous design studies on freeform systems have been published, little has been presented in the open literature on as built freeform systems. In this paper we describe the successful outcome of a hardware development program where we designed, built, aligned, and tested a compact WFOV three-mirror telescope with freeform surfaces. It is important that in addition to good optical performance, excellent stray light control is required in Earth remote sensing systems to minimum calibration errors across spectral bands. While compact size is often emphasized in the design of freeform systems, this needs to be balanced against the requirement for good stray light control. As such, the telescope presented in this paper balances the desire for small size with good stray light control. We present the results of the computer-aided alignment of the telescope along with measured stray light performance.
Conference Presentation
© (2022) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Thomas U. Kampe, Isaiah Franka, Peter Spuhler, Natalie Fan, Zachary Ferkel, JC Soto, John Fleming, Jerold Cole, and Timothy Finch "Development and test of 3-mirror freeform telescope for Earth remote sensing applications", Proc. SPIE 12232, Earth Observing Systems XXVII, 1223208 (30 September 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2633149
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KEYWORDS
Telescopes

Mirrors

Stray light

Wavefronts

Optical instrument design

Freeform optics

Optical design

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