The Fizeau Interferometer Testbed

Abstract

The Fizeau Interferometer Testbed (FIT) is a collaborative effort between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Naval Research Laboratory, Sigma Space Corporation, and the University of Maryland. The testbed will be used to explore the principles of and the requirements for the full, as well as the pathfinder, Stellar Imager mission concept. It has a long term goal of demonstrating closed-loop control of a sparse array of numerous articulated mirrors to keep optical beams in phase and optimize interferometric synthesis imaging. In this paper we present the optical and data acquisition system design of the testbed, and discuss the wavefront sensing and control algorithms to be used. Currently we have completed the initial design and hardware procurement for the FIT. The assembly and testing of the Testbed will be underway at Goddard's Instrument Development Lab in the coming months.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA526768

Entities

People

  • Gregory Solyar
  • Hubert Huet
  • Joe Marzouk
  • Kenneth G. Carpenter
  • Richard G. Lyon
  • Xiaolei Zhang

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Color Temperature
  • Control Panels
  • Control Systems
  • Detectors
  • Focal Planes
  • Geometry
  • Ground Based
  • Interferometers
  • Interferometry
  • Light Sources
  • Metrology
  • Military Research
  • Optics
  • Remote Sensing
  • Solar System
  • Stars

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Software Engineering
  • Software Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Satellites
  • Space - Spacecraft Maneuvers