NASA SBIR 2006 Solicitation

FORM B - PROPOSAL SUMMARY


PROPOSAL NUMBER: 06-2 S3.04-9363
PHASE 1 CONTRACT NUMBER: NNX07CA49P
SUBTOPIC TITLE: Optical Devices for Starlight Detection and Wavefront Analysis
PROPOSAL TITLE: Beam Combination for Sparse Aperture Telescopes

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Seabrook Engineering
9310 Dubarry Avenue
Seabrook , MD 20706 - 3108
(301) 459-3375

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
David Mozurkewich
dave@mozurkewich.com
9310 Dubarry Avenue
Seabrook , MD 20706 - 3108
(301) 459-3375

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
This proposal is for funding to continue development of an alternative beam combiner for Stellar Imager (SI), a 30-aperture, interferometric telescope chosen as one of fifteen Vision Missions. Called the Spatial Frequency Remapper, SFR, it trades the large field of view of a Fizeau design for simultaneous observations at multiple wavelengths. Since SI does not require a large field, SFR, is a clearly better design. It can produce better images and allows tight control requirements to be relaxed. The SFR is also the heart of a full-aperture interferometric imaging system that will dramatically improve the performance of AO equipped telescopes. The Phase I study was remarkably successful. The SFR design was rejected during the Vision Study because of its perceived optical complexity. That concern was retired; the design is robust, even with many apertures. It needs only three optical surfaces, down from the five-surface design of the Vision Study. Tolerances are not tight. The inputs can be divided between combiners, further simplifying the optics and data flow with negligible effect on mission performance. The search for better sparse-aperture configurations worked. The search was sped up 1000 fold, enabling the discovery of the 30-aperture configurations needed for SI. The main commercial application, improving images from AO equipped telescopes, requires a seemingly impossible to build optical fiber interface. We found an alternative assembly procedure that is standing up well to detailed study. A data reduction technique was developed that should improve sensitivity by a factor of 1000, increasing the range of possible applications. The configuration search found ways to divide a full-aperture into the multiple configurations, tying off another loose thread in the design. Finally, a testbed and prototyping plan was developed since in our view the success of the Phase I study clearly supports continuing the development of this technology.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
SFR technology is the heart of a full-aperture interferometric imaging system, an improvement over the already successful aperture masking. Aperture masking is a proven technique that has produced repeatable, high dynamic range images of complex sources at the diffraction limit of the telescope. It has consistently outperformed adaptive optics in image quality but lacks the sensitivity of an AO system. The new system improves on aperture masking both by enabling better amplitude calibration, which will further improve the images, and by using light from the entire aperture. Placed behind a good AO system, it should approach the sensitivity of the AO while maintaining its high-precision calibration. Applications should be numerous with the Air Force satellite imaging community targeted as the first customer. Other major observatories are also potential customers. An exciting possibility is that this may be the technology that, when coupled with a good AO system, will provide the image quality needed for the next generation of large (30-meter) ground-based telescopes to move forward. Seabrook Engineering plans to pursue this link and to be in position to provide instrumentation for those facilities.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The direct NASA application of the Spatial Frequency Remapper (SFR) is to the Stellar Imager where it significantly improves the capabilities of that mission by providing simultaneous observations at multiple wavelengths. Seabrook Engineering plans to be in a position to provide hardware for Stellar Imager, a precursor mission or for ground testing in preparation for one or both of those missions. Also, one could imagine deploying SFR at ground-based optical interferometers to jump start the Stellar Imager science program. Another exciting NASA application is to direct planet detection with a high-dynamic range coronagraph. Full-aperture interferometric imaging, has the remarkable ability to form an image that is not corrupted by wavefront errors. In particular, interferometric imaging eliminates the speckle noise present in images from a typical astronomical telescope. Since the performance of TPF-C is limited by speckles, using interferometric imaging instead of a traditional CCD camera for the detector could potentially revolutionize the mission. Full-aperture interferometric imaging can also work as a powerful wavefront sensor and is potentially useful where ever the wavefront quality is not good enough for the required task. Space-telescopes with large, deployed apertures are a possibility. Undoubtedly, more applications will become apparent as the technology develops.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING
Optical


Form Generated on 08-02-07 14:39