The PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: first flight results and second flight preparation

Christopher B. Mendillo; Kuravi Hewawasam; Jason Martel; Thaddeus Potter; Timothy A. Cook; Supriya Chakrabarti

doi:10.1117/12.2594749

1 September 2021 The PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: first flight results and second flight preparation

Christopher B. Mendillo, Kuravi Hewawasam, Jason Martel, Thaddeus Potter, Timothy A. Cook, Supriya Chakrabarti

Proceedings Volume 11823, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets X; 118230X (2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2594749
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2021, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Planetary Imaging Concept Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment - Coronagraph (PICTURE-C) mission will directly image debris disks and exozodiacal dust around nearby stars from a high-altitude balloon using a vector vortex coronagraph. The first flight of PICTURE-C launched from the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Ft. Sumner, NM on September 28, 2019 and ew for a total of 20 hours, with 16 hours at float altitude above 110,000 ft. This flight successfully demonstrated many key technologies for exoplanetary direct imaging missions and all hardware components for the second, science-focused flight of PICTURE-C scheduled for the fall of 2021. These technologies include a vector vortex coronagraph, high and low-order deformable mirrors and a high speed low-order wavefront control system. The experiment also demonstrated a 60 cm off-axis telescope with a hexapod-actuated secondary mirror that aligned itself automatically during flight. This paper details the flight performance of PICTURE-C, focusing on the operation of the low-order wavefront control system and the influence of high-frequency structural vibrations. We present new structural modifications that have been made to reduce these vibrations and laboratory demonstrations of the flight 2 coronagraph, which uses a high-order 952 actuator MEMS deformable mirror to create a high-contrast dark zone.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Christopher B. Mendillo, Kuravi Hewawasam, Jason Martel, Thaddeus Potter, Timothy A. Cook, and Supriya Chakrabarti "The PICTURE-C exoplanetary imaging balloon mission: first flight results and second flight preparation", Proc. SPIE 11823, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets X, 118230X (1 September 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2594749

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