Design of the EnVisS instrument optical head

Beatrice Tofani; Riccardo Gabrieli; Giuseppe Impiccichè; Chiara Graziosi; Leonardo Tommasi; Demetrio Labate; Fabio Belli; Chiara Cicciarelli; Claudio Pernechele; Paola Zuppella; Paolo Chioetto; Simone Nordera; Geraint Jones; George Brydon; Anamarija Stankov; Vincenzo Della Corte; Vania Da Deppo

doi:10.1117/12.2690282

12 July 2023 Design of the EnVisS instrument optical head

Beatrice Tofani, Riccardo Gabrieli, Giuseppe Impiccichè, Chiara Graziosi, Leonardo Tommasi, Demetrio Labate, Fabio Belli, Chiara Cicciarelli, Claudio Pernechele, Paola Zuppella, Paolo Chioetto, Simone Nordera, Geraint Jones, George Brydon, Anamarija Stankov, Vincenzo Della Corte, Vania Da Deppo

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Proceedings Volume 12777, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022; 127772P (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2690282
Event: International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022, 2022, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Abstract

The EnVisS (Entire Visible Sky) instrument is one of the payloads of the European Space Agency Comet Interceptor mission. The aim of the mission is the study of a dynamically new comet, i.e. a comet that never travelled through the solar system, or an interstellar object, entering the inner solar system. As the mission three-spacecraft system passes through the comet coma, the EnVisS instrument maps the sky, as viewed from the interior of the comet tail, providing information on the dust properties and distribution. EnVisS is mounted on a spinning spacecraft and the full sky (i.e. 360°x180°) is entirely mapped thanks to a very wide field of view (180°x45°) optical design selected for the EnVisS camera. The paper presents the design of the EnVisS optical head. A fisheye optical layout has been selected because of the required wide field of view (180°x45°). This kind of layout has recently found several applications in Earth remote sensing (3MI instrument on MetOp SG) and in space exploration (SMEI instrument on Coriolis, MARCI on Mars reconnaissance orbiter). The EnVisS optical head provides a high resolved image to be coupled with a COTS detector featuring 2kx2k pixels with pitch 5.5µm. Chromatic aberration is corrected in the waveband 550-800nm, while the distortion has been controlled over the whole field of view to remain below 8% with respect to an Fθ mapping law. Since the camera will be switched on 24 hours before the comet closest encounter, the operative temperature will change during the approaching phase and crossing of the comet’s coma. In the paper, we discuss the solution adopted for reaching these challenging performances for a space-grade design, while at the same time respecting the demanding small allocated volume and mass for the optical and mechanical design. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency.

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Beatrice Tofani, Riccardo Gabrieli, Giuseppe Impiccichè, Chiara Graziosi, Leonardo Tommasi, Demetrio Labate, Fabio Belli, Chiara Cicciarelli, Claudio Pernechele, Paola Zuppella, Paolo Chioetto, Simone Nordera, Geraint Jones, George Brydon, Anamarija Stankov, Vincenzo Della Corte, and Vania Da Deppo "Design of the EnVisS instrument optical head", Proc. SPIE 12777, International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022, 127772P (12 July 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2690282

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