2014/07/14 by A. Mora, M. Biermann, A. G. A. Brown +27 · 13 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Aerospace engineering #Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation #Astronomical interferometer #Computer science #Engineering #Focus (optics) #Interferometry #Measure (data warehouse) #Metrology #Optical Systems and Laser Technology #Optics #Payload (computing) #Physics #Telescope #Wavefront #astro-ph.IM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1117/12.2054602
published in Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE 9143, 91430X (SPIE) · 18 pages, 14 figures. To appear in SPIE proceedings 9143-30. Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave
arxiv created 2014/07/14 · openalex publication_date 2014/08/01 · arxiv updated 2015/06/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The Gaia payload ensures maximum passive stability using a single material, SiC, for most of its elements. Dedicated metrology instruments are, however, required to carry out two functions: monitoring the basic angle and refocusing the telescope. Two interferometers fed by the same laser are used to measure the basic angle changes at the level of μas (prad, micropixel), which is the highest level ever achieved in space. Two Shack- Hartmann wavefront sensors, combined with an ad-hoc analysis of the scientific data are used to define and reach the overall best-focus. In this contribution, the systems, data analysis, procedures and performance achieved during commissioning are presented .