A General Purpose Astronomy Small Satellite: An approach to low-cost space telescope design using space-qualified ground telescopes
The General Purpose Astronomy - Small Satellite (GPA-SS) project studied the feasibility of developing a useful space telescope with a cost to launch below $100 million. An optical telescope assembly (OTA) designed for ground use is proposed for use in a space mission in order to take advantage of t...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
SPIE
2011
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61370 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9527-7904 |
| Summary: | The General Purpose Astronomy - Small Satellite (GPA-SS) project studied the feasibility of developing a useful space telescope with a cost to launch below $100 million. An optical telescope assembly (OTA) designed for ground use is proposed for use in a space mission in order to take advantage of the economies of scale in existing mirror fabrication processes. This paper details the additional design, manufacture and test tasks required to flight-qualify the ground telescope. A near-infrared imaging space telescope was costed as a potential mission. Key subsystems were designed at a conceptual level. This design was used both to estimate subsystem costs and to inform the science achievable from a given telescope design. Subsystem costs were estimated from the design through a combination of previously published cost estimating relationships and vendor quotes. This paper concludes that the space-qualification of an existing ground telescope is a potential approach for making significant cost savings when designing a low cost space telescope. Additional work on design and cost estimation around the framework presented in this paper could be undertaken to add certainty to the cost estimate. |
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