First flight results from PICTURE-C, a NASA high-altitude balloon mission to directly image exoplanetary systems
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 flew 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 2020. 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. PICTURE-C observed 8 different stars of varying brightness and spectral type — a combination of science and calibration targets. The NASA Wallops ArcSecond Pointer (WASP) gondola was used to control the telescope pointing continuously throughout the flight. This presentation will give an overview of all aspects of the launch and flight operations of PICTURE-C. It will focus particularly on the performance of the low-order wavefront control system and its interaction with the WASP pointing system.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23532002M