Enabling concepts for a dual spacecraft formation-flying optical interferometer for NASA's ST3 mission
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We present the enabling concept and technology for a dual spacecraft formation-flying optical interferometer, to be launched into a deep space orbit as Space Technology 3. The combiner spacecraft makes use of a nested cat's eye delay line configuration that minimizes wavefront distortion and stores 20 m of optical pathlength in a package of \sim 1.5 m length. A parabolic trajectory for the secondary collector spacecraft enables baselines of up to 200 m for a fixed 20 m stored delay and spacecraft separations of up to 1 km.
6 pp, 4 fig., to appear in "Working on the Fringe", Proc. of the 1999 Dana Pt. Conf. on Optical Interferometry, PASP conf. proc., in press; (some slight revisions from conference version)
6 pp, 4 fig., to appear in "Working on the Fringe", Proc. of the 1999 Dana Pt. Conf. on Optical Interferometry, PASP conf. proc., in press; (some slight revisions from conference version)