PICTURE: a sounding rocket experiment for direct imaging of an extrasolar planetary environment

Christopher B. Mendillo; Brian A. Hicks; Timothy A. Cook; Thomas G. Bifano; David A. Content; Benjamin F. Lane; B. Martin Levine; Douglas Rabin; Shanti R. Rao; Rocco Samuele; Edouard Schmidtlin; Michael Shao; J. Kent Wallace; Supriya Chakrabarti

doi:10.1117/12.926408

21 September 2012 PICTURE: a sounding rocket experiment for direct imaging of an extrasolar planetary environment

Christopher B. Mendillo, Brian A. Hicks, Timothy A. Cook, Thomas G. Bifano, David A. Content, Benjamin F. Lane, B. Martin Levine, Douglas Rabin, Shanti R. Rao, Rocco Samuele, Edouard Schmidtlin, Michael Shao, J. Kent Wallace, Supriya Chakrabarti

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8442, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave; 84420E (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.926408
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract

The Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Rocket Experiment (PICTURE 36.225 UG) was designed to directly image the exozodiacal dust disk of ǫ Eridani (K2V, 3.22 pc) down to an inner radius of 1.5 AU. PICTURE carried four key enabling technologies on board a NASA sounding rocket at 4:25 MDT on October 8th, 2011: a 0.5 m light-weight primary mirror (4.5 kg), a visible nulling coronagraph (VNC) (600-750 nm), a 32x32 element MEMS deformable mirror and a milliarcsecond-class fine pointing system. Unfortunately, due to a telemetry failure, the PICTURE mission did not achieve scientific success. Nonetheless, this flight validated the flight-worthiness of the lightweight primary and the VNC. The fine pointing system, a key requirement for future planet-imaging missions, demonstrated 5.1 mas RMS in-flight pointing stability. We describe the experiment, its subsystems and flight results. We outline the challenges we faced in developing this complex payload and our technical approaches.

Citation Download Citation

Christopher B. Mendillo, Brian A. Hicks, Timothy A. Cook, Thomas G. Bifano, David A. Content, Benjamin F. Lane, B. Martin Levine, Douglas Rabin, Shanti R. Rao, Rocco Samuele, Edouard Schmidtlin, Michael Shao, J. Kent Wallace, and Supriya Chakrabarti "PICTURE: a sounding rocket experiment for direct imaging of an extrasolar planetary environment", Proc. SPIE 8442, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter Wave, 84420E (21 September 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.926408

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available