Dr. Simon P. Plunkett Profile

Dr. Simon P. Plunkett

Program Scientist at NASA Headquarters

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Author

Publications (8)

Proceedings Article | 6 July 2018 Presentation + Paper

Stray light analysis and testing of the SoloHI (solar orbiter heliospheric imager) and WISPR (wide field imager for solar probe) heliospheric imagers

Arnaud F. Thernisien, Russell Howard, Clarence Korendyke, Tim Carter, Damien Chua, Simon Plunkett

Proceedings Volume 10698, 106980E (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313645

KEYWORDS: Stray light, Telescopes, Space telescopes, Space operations, Sun, Imaging systems, Solar processes, Diffraction, Coronagraphy, Sensors

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The techniques for stray light analysis, optimization and testing are described for two space telescopes that observe the solar corona: the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) that will fly on the ESA Solar Orbiter (SolO), and the Wide Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) that will fly on the NASA Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission. Imaging the solar corona is challenging, because the corona is six orders of magnitude dimmer than the Sun surface at the limb, and the coronal brightness continues to decrease to ten orders of magnitude below the Sun limb above 5° elongation from Sun center. The SoloHI and WISPR instruments are located behind their respective spacecraft heat shield. Each spacecraft heat shield does not block the instrument field of view above the solar limb, but will prevent direct sunlight entering the instrument aperture. To satisfy the instrument stray light attenuation required to observe the solar corona, an additional set of instrument baffles were designed and tested for successive diffraction of the heat shield diffracted light before entering the telescope entrance pupil. A semi empirical model of diffraction was used to design the baffles, and tests of the flight models were performed in flight like conditions with the aim of verifying the rejection of the design. Test data showed that the baffle systems behaved as expected. A second source of stray light is due to reflections of the sunlight off of the spacecraft structures and towards the instruments. This is especially the case for SoloHI where one of the spacecraft 8m tall solar arrays is located behind the telescope and reflects sunlight back onto the instrument baffles. The SoloHI baffle design had to be adjusted to mitigate that component, which was achieved by modifying their geometry and their optical coating. Laboratory tests of the flight model were performed. The test data were correlated with the predictions of a ray tracing model, which enabled the fine tuning of the model. Finally, end-to-end ray tracing was used to predict the stray light for the flight conditions.

Proceedings Article | 17 May 2016 Paper

Rugged spinel optics for space based imaging systems

Shyam Bayya, Guillermo Villalobos, Michael Hunt, Woohong Kim, Simon Plunkett, Jasbinder Sanghera

Proceedings Volume 9822, 982204 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2224144

KEYWORDS: Spinel, Glasses, Particles, Astronomical imaging, Imaging systems, Ultraviolet radiation, Mid-IR, Sapphire, Ceramics, Space operations

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Proceedings Article | 7 October 2013 Paper

Development and test of an active pixel sensor detector for heliospheric imager on solar orbiter and solar probe plus

Clarence Korendyke, Angelos Vourlidas, Simon Plunkett, Russell Howard, Dennis Wang, Cheryl Marshall, Augustyn Waczynski, James Janesick, Thomas Elliott, Samuel Tun, John Tower, Mark Grygon, David Keller, Gregory Clifford

Proceedings Volume 8862, 88620J (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2027655

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Sun, Active sensors, Imaging systems, Solar processes, Prototyping, Detector development, CCD image sensors, Image sensors, Charge-coupled devices

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Proceedings Article | 26 September 2013 Paper

The solar and heliospheric imager (SoloHI) instrument for the solar orbiter mission

Russell Howard, Angelos Vourlidas, Clarence Korendyke, Simon Plunkett, Michael Carter, Dennis Wang, Nathan Rich, Donald McMullin, Sean Lynch, Adam Thurn, Greg Clifford, Dennis Socker, Arnaud Thernisien, Damien Chua, Mark Linton, David Keller, James Janesick, John Tower, Mark Grygon, Robert Hagood, William Bast, Paulett Liewer, Eric DeJong, Marco M. Velli, Zoran Mikic, Volker Bothmer, Pierre Rochus, Jean-Philippe Halain, Philippe Lamy

Proceedings Volume 8862, 88620H (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2027657

KEYWORDS: Sensors, Sun, Solar processes, Stray light, Space operations, Imaging systems, Light scattering, Space telescopes, Telescopes, Cameras

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Proceedings Article | 26 September 2013 Paper

Seeing the corona with the solar probe plus mission: the wide-field imager for solar probe+ (WISPR)

Angelos Vourlidas, Russell Howard, Simon Plunkett, Clarence Korendyke, Michael Carter, Arnaud F. Thernisien, Damien Chua, Peter Van Duyne, Dennis Socker, Mark Linton, Paulett Liewer, Jeffrey Hall, Jeff Morrill, Eric DeJong, Zoran Mikic, Pierre L. P. Rochus, Volker Bothmer, Jens Rodman, Philippe Lamy

Proceedings Volume 8862, 88620I (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2027508

KEYWORDS: Solar processes, Coronagraphy, Telescopes, Imaging systems, Stray light, Sun, Particles, Space telescopes, Interfaces, Cameras

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Proceedings Article | 3 October 2007 Paper

STEREO: Heliospheric Imager design, pre-flight, and in-flight response comparison

Jean-Philippe Halain, Emmanuel Mazy, Jean-Marc Defise, Alexandra Mazzoli, Pierre Rochus, J. Daniel Moses, Jeffrey Newmark, Clarence Korendyke, Russ Howard, Simon Plunkett, Chris Eyles, Richard Harrison, Chris Davis

Proceedings Volume 6689, 668906 (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.731098

KEYWORDS: Calibration, Sun, Cameras, Point spread functions, Sensors, Imaging systems, Space operations, Photometry, Optical calibration, Collimators

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Proceedings Article | 20 September 2007 Paper

In-orbit verification, calibration, and performance of the Heliospheric Imager on the STEREO mission

Chris Eyles, Chris Davis, Richard Harrison, Nick Waltham, Jean-Philippe Halain, Emmanuel Mazy, Jean-Marc Defise, Russ Howard, Dan Moses, Jeff Newmark, Simon Plunkett

Proceedings Volume 6689, 668907 (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.732822

KEYWORDS: Cameras, Space operations, Curium, Sun, Charge-coupled devices, Calibration, CCD cameras, Solar processes, Imaging systems, Coronagraphy

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Proceedings Article | 25 August 2005 Paper

Experimental and numerical optimization of a coronagraph external occulter: application to SECCHI-COR2 and GOES-R SCOR

A. Thernisien, R. Colaninno, S. Plunkett, D. Socker, Q. Gong, F. Landini

Proceedings Volume 5901, 59011E (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.614567

KEYWORDS: Coronagraphy, Sun, Solar processes, Diffraction, Charge-coupled devices, Computer simulations, Instrument modeling, Numerical simulations, Objectives, Collimators

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Showing 5 of 8 publications

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